Despite its negligible emission of greenhouse gases Ethiopia has been affected by the adversernimpacts of climate change and variability in different sectors among which the agriculturalrnsector is of a critical focus of this study. This study was conducted with the general objectivernof analysing the adaptive capacity of farmers to climate change and variability in the tworndominant agro ecologies of Laelay Mychew woreda central zone of Tigray based on datarncollected from 100 household. Descriptive statistics and chi square were used to analyse therntrends of temperature, precipitation changes and occurrence of extreme climatic events in thernstudy area over the last there decades as perceived by respondents. Accordingly there is anrnincreasing and decreasing trend of temperature and precipitation respectively, while,rndrought, flooding and storm have shown increased frequency over the last 30 years.rnAccording to the chi square results there was a similar trend in the climate change andrnvariability in both agro ecologies of the study.area. The adaptive capacity of farmers tornclimate change and variability in the study area was analysed by using descriptive statistics,rnchi squarelT-test and principal component analysis. According to the results from therndescriptive analysis, farmers in the study area have low level of possession and access to thernkey livelihood assets. This leads to acceptance of the hypothesis of the study which states thatrnfarmers in the study area have low adaptive capacity to climate change and variability. Thernresults from the principal component analysis also demonstrated that farmers in the Degarnagro ecology have highest adaptive capacity to climate change and variability. In Hatsebornkebele (Dega) 64%, 36% and 0% of the surveyed households have highest, medium andrnlowest adaptive capacity to climate change and variability, where as in Welel kebele (kola)rn4%, 28% and 68% of the total surveyed household have highest, medium and lowest adaptiverncapacity to climate change and variability. This difference is statistically significant atrnO.OJ/evel. Hence, the hypothesis that farmers living in Dega agro ecology have bellerrnadaptive capacity to climate change and variability is accepted at less than O. OJ levels. Tornassess the demographic, socia-economic and farming characteristics that affect farmersrnadaptive capacity linear correlation was used. Accordingly, Adaptive capacity of farmers tornclimate change and variability in the study area is strongly affected by household head'srnage (0. 360), size of cultivable land(0.55J), type of agricultural practice(0.585) andrnhousehold's wealth status(O.646) which is significant at 0.01 level. While it is moderatelyrnaffected by household family size (0.226) and purpose of agricultural practice (0.254) andrnthis is significant at 0.05 levels. So as to enhance the adaptive capacity offarmers in the studyrnarea measures such as, effective implementation of health care service, facili tating morernsupportive and cohesive social environment, better management of natural resources, bellerrnaccess [0 basic extension services and facilitating inji'C/structure development, easy access tornfinancial resources, improved early warning systems Cind awareness creation, and targetingrnadaptation initiatives towards the lowest adaptive capacity groups and more susceptiblernareas were recommended.rnKey words: Climate change and variability, Adaptive capacity, Agro-ecology