Abstract:
The adverse impact of climate change on agricultural production and productivity is increasing over time in Ethiopia. Smallholder farmers are the most vulnerable group of the society to the effects of climate change in this country since their livelihood depended on rainfed agriculture. This study was carried out to examine smallholder farmers’ vulnerability, perception, the choice of adaptation strategies, and institutional adaptive capacity of local institutions to climate change in East Hararghe Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select districts, kebeles, and sample respondents. Accordingly, four districts, 17 kebeles, and 384 sample respondents were selected for the study. The 33 years temperature and rainfall data were used to analyze the trend in climate. Descriptive statistics and econometric models were employed to analyze the data. Vulnerability to the expected poverty, binary logit, multivariteprobit models and adaptive capacity wheel were used to measure vulnerability, identify determinants of vulnerability, investigate determinants of the choice of adaptation strategies, and assess the institutional adaptive capacity of local institutions respectively. Moreover, temperature and rainfall trends were analyzed using the Mann-Kendall statistical test. According to the findings, 73 percent of the respondents were likely to be vulnerable to climate change-related shocks next time. Households with better farm experience, land size, livestock ownership, access to credit, access to extension service, social capital, access to climate information, non-farm income, and headed by a male were less likely to be vulnerable to climate change; whereas households who were living in low and midland agro-ecologies, far from the market, and participating in productive safety-net programs were more likely to be vulnerable to climate change. The study also found that smallholder farmers' vulnerability was sensitive to the minimum income required to maintain daily life, implying the need to integrate other income-generating activities that supplement farm income to reduce the farm household's vulnerability to climate change. Moreover, the trend analysis result of temperature and rainfall indicated that temperature raised and rainfall decreased over the last 33 years. The result also revealed that farmers’ perception of climate change was consistent with the metrological data trends. Improved crop varieties, diversifying crop, adjusting planting dates, conserving soil and water, reducing livestock size, planting trees, and small-scale irrigation are the most common climate change adaptation strategies used by farm households in the study area. The multivariate probit model revealed that sex of the household head, landholding size, livestock ownership, access to extension, access to credit, social capital, market distance, access to climate change-related training, non-farm income, agro-ecological setting, and poverty status of the households significantly influenced farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies. As a result, xv strategies addressing climate change adaptation should concentrate on the aforementioned factors to help smallholder farmers adapt to the changing climate. Furthermore, according to the adaptive capacity wheel, the disaster risk management office has a very poor adaptive capacity (score of -0.87), whereas farmers cooperatives and CARE have a higher adaptive capacity (scores of +1.5 and +1.4, respectively). The finding of this study indicated thathigher exposure to climate-induced shocks such as drought increased the vulnerability of farm households. As a result, reducing vulnerability and improving smallholder farmers' adaptive capacity by creating non-farm employment opportunities, strengthening local institutions, and increasing access to various services should be part of climate change adaptation and poverty reduction policies and strategies. Climate change adaptation strategies should also consider demographic, economic, social, institutional, and geographic differences, as these distinctions will help policymakers build specific adaptation techniques that fit the needs of different groups.