Smallholder Farmers' Adaptation to Climate Change in Zenzelima, Ethiopia

Summary

Zenzelima is a small kebele located in the North-western part of Ethiopia, where future climate change is predicted to challenge the farmers’ agricultural systems beyond their coping range.
Farmers in Zenzelima will therefore need to adapt to climate change in order to maintain their livelihoods in the future. Adaptation to climate change requires the recognition of the need to adapt and the ability to adapt. This study therefore analyses the farmers’ perception of climate change and their ability to adapt to climate changes. For this qualitative interviews have been
performed with 10 farmer households in Zenzelima, where both husband and wife have been interviewed, 4 agricultural extension workers, and 1 employee from The Organization for
Rehabilitation and Development in Amhara (ORDA). The results show that most of the farmers do not apply agricultural adaptations to climate change, since their awareness of the need to adapt and their adaptive capacity is low. The main factors influencing the farmers’ adaptive
capacity is their availability and access to water, agricultural land, agricultural inputs, information
on agricultural adaptation strategies, and decision power. Furthermore, individual human capital and institutions are influencing the interviewed farmers access to the above listed means and their ability to imply adaptation strategies to climate change. Information on effective agricultural adaptation strategies should be promoted, the farmers access to agricultural inputs should be increased, and institutions that limits the adaptive capacity of farmers should be discarded in order to increase the adaptive capacity of farmers in Zenzelima to climate change.