Farmers Adaptation Strategies To Climate Change On Agricultural Production The Case Of Negelle Arsi Woreda West Arsi Zone Oromia Region

Livelihoods of the rural communities depends on agricultural sector which is often affected byrnthe variability and extremes of climate change. To capture the variation in Ethiopia’s biophysical conditions (i.e., elevation, climate, terrain, soil type, vegetation, and fauna) the MoA hasrnpreviously split the country into 32 Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs). For assessment in this strategy, the AEZs have been clustered to create 14 Adaptation Planning Zones (APZs). This is inrnorder to simplify the analysis while reflecting the diversity within Ethiopia’s climate. The studyrnarea is one of the climate changes prone areas in the central rift valley of Ethiopia. Hence understanding of area specific and adaptation is crucial to develop and implement proper adaptation strategies that can reduce the adverse impact of climate change on crop and livestock sectors. This study investigated how the farming communities perceive climate change, its adversernimpacts, adaptation mechanisms they practice and factors that hampers their decision to adaptrnappropriate strategies. Both primary and secondary data were used, and the primary data wererncollected through discussions, observation, and interviews. Moreover, annual temperature andrnprecipitation data were obtained from the National Meteorological Agency (NMA) of Ethiopiarnfor the period between 1983 and 2016. The study applied CV, SRA, a nonparametric Sen’s slopernestimator and Mann–Kendall’s trend tests to detect the magnitude and statistical significance ofrnclimate variability. The Multinomial regression models with the help of software STATA versionrn13 were used to analyze the influence of the socioeconomic characteristics of sample householdsrnon the farmer's decision to choose climate change adaptation strategies. The result shows manyrnof the farmers choose drought and disease resistant short season variety (75%), crop diversification (66%) and irrigation (47%) as adaptation strategies to the changing climate despite theirrnactual adaptation practices in place. The result also indicated that crop failure, drought andrnshortages of water, pest and diseases, soil erosion and flooding are key climate change-relatedrnproblems. To alter the negative impact of climate, farmers are mainly using drought resistantrncrops and livestock varieties, adjustment of planting dates, agroforestry and income sources diversification. The econometric model indicated that education, farmland, sex of household head,rnaccess to credit and market and extension services were the key factors determining farmers’rnadaptation practices in the study area. The study concludes that farmers’ capacity to chooserneffective adaptation options depends on their affordability to buy farm inputs and get access tornirrigation technologies. Thus, increasing their engagement on of farm activities that are lessrnimpacted by climate variability can be taken as best alternative way of adaptation mechanism.rnSegregation of detail adaptation strategies by subagroecologies is limitation of the study and it isrnrecommended for further study.

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