Assessment of Farmers’ Adaptation to the Effects of Climate Change in Kenya: the Case of Kyuso District

Abstract

The study was carried out to assess how farmers in Kyuso District have adapted to the effects of climate change. Survey data was collected from 246 farmers from six locations that were sampled out through a multistage and simple random sampling procedure. The probit regression model was fitted into the data in order to assess factors influencing farmers’ adaptation to the effects of climate change. The analysis revealed that 85% of the farmers had adapted in various ways to the effects of climate change. In this regard, the age of the farmer, gender, education, farming experience, farm income, access to climate information, household size, local agro-ecology, distance to input/output market, access to credit, access to water for irrigation, precipitation and temperature were found to have significant influence on the probability of farmers to adapt to climate change. The study suggests that more policy efforts should thus be geared towards helping all the farmers in the district to adapt to climate change.

Key words: climate change, adaptation, probit regression model, Kyuso District.