IMPACTS OF CLIMATE VARIABILITY ON SELECTED CROP PRODUCTION: THE CASE OF BABILE DISTRICT, EAST HARARGHE ZONE, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

This study was conducted to assess climate variability and its impacts on selected crop production in Babile district. To achieve the objective, primary data was obtained using questionnaire, focus group discussion and key informant interviews whereas secondary data were acquired from different published and unpublished documents from various offices of the district. The study also used rainfall and temperature data (1997 – 2016).out of 4875 household heads founds in the selected four rural kebeles 369 household heads was randomly selected. Survey data was analyzed through descriptive statistics using the statistical package for Social Sciences (SPSS) V20 whereas precipitation concentration index, coefficient of variation, Mann Kendall trend test were calculated using XLSTAT to characterize climate variability, while a correlation and linear regression model was utilized to analyze impacts of climate variability on selected crop production (sorghum and maize) .Climate data analysis revealed moderate variability for annual rainfall (CV=29%) and high variability for all seasonal rainfall (bega CV=105.5%, belg CV=46.4%, kiremt CV=31.3%). Annual, kiremt, belg and bega seasonal rainfall showed decrease of -0.2mm, -0.08mm, -0.01mm and -0.04mm respectively over the past 20 years in study period. On the other hand, the trend of annual maximum, minimum and mean temperature showed upward trends by factors of 0.4, 0.08 and 0.14 oC respectively over the past 20 years. A linear regression model results revealed that rainfall and temperature variability had significant impacts on sorghum and maize among household in the study area. The computed value for coefficient of determinations (R2 ) of sorghum and maize yield were 0.729 and 0.620, respectively. This shows that climate variability substantially affects agricultural production in the area