ASSEMET OF CLIMATE VARIABILITY IMPACTSE ON WHEAT PRODACTION, FARMERS’ PERCEPTION AND ADAPTAION STRATEGIES: THE CASE OF DOYOGENA WOREDA FARMING COMMUNITIES OF KAMBATA-TAMBARO ZONE, SNNPR, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Climate variability has adversely affected the livelihoods of people in developing countries where a large proportion of the population is heavily dependent on agriculture. Severe and repeated rise in temperature and rainfall failures caused loss of crops and livestock which resulted in food insecurity in Ethiopia. This study aims to assess farmers’ perception on climate variability, its impacts and adaptation strategies in Doyogena District.The study used multi stage sampling procedure. Purposive sampling procedure was used to select study area. Primary data were collected using key informant interviews, focus group discussions and household surveys with 181 households. Similarly, secondary data were collected from NMA and DWARDO. Descriptive statistics, MNL and SPI were used to analyze the collected data. According to the survey results, about 83% of the respondents perceive that, the rainfall amount in the study area is decreasing. However, long-term recorded 1996-2019 rainfall data showed that the annual rainfall is decreasing by the rate of –6.56 annually over the past 24 years. The mean annual rainfall was 1164.19mm with 11.5% of coefficient of variation which is less variable based on degree of variability. Similarly, 84.70% of interviewed farmers said that temperature is in increasing trend, which confirms the results from the analysis from 1996-2019 recorded data by NMA that indicated the mean minimum and maximum temperatures are increasing by 0.074ºC and 0.021ºC per annum respectively. The study had also shown that farmer’s adaptation strategies include; using improved crop variety, mixed crop livestock system, use of irrigation, soil and water conservation, adjusting planting date and income diversification activities. The marginal effects of MNL model results also indicated that, the adaptation strategies used by farmers were significantly (p< 0.05) influenced by age, family size, farm land size, monthly income and livestock ownership, whereas; sex, access to extension service, access to credit service and farming experience. Therefore, improving farmers’ perception of climate information, and promoting farm-level adaptation strategies such as the use of new agricultural technologies and adjusting planting date must be strengthened in the study area.