Farmers’ Perception to Climate Change and Variability: The Case of Mareka District of Dawuro Zone, South Ethiopia

Abstract

Agriculture is the main stay of people in Ethiopia. However, the current change in the main parameters of climate, temperature and precipitation put rain dependent agriculture under serious problem. This coupled with low adaptive capacity of the people make the country highly susceptible to the adverse impact of climate change and variability. The main objective of this study was to assess the perception of farmers to climate change and variability in Mareka District of Dawuro zone, South Ethiopia. A total of 37 kebeles of the wereda were stratified under three dominant agro-ecologies (as highland, midland and lowland).Date collected using semi-structured questionnaire from the total of 384 households of the district was subjected to Statistical Software for Social Science SPSS v.20. Besides data collected employing qualitative tools: Focused group discussion and Key informant interview was coded, categorized and finally narrated. The finding confirmed that most of the interviewed farmers perceived the changes in temperature and precipitation: about 89.6% of farmers believed that temperature has increased and 80.5% of farmers mentioned as the pattern of precipitation have become unpredictable. The perception of farmers on temperature and precipitation was also in line with meteorological data of the area. This indicates a need for the implementation of different strategies in communities across the district to help effectively to manage the consequent future impact of climate change and variability in the area. Therefore, rigorous policy that can effectively work in mitigating the shocking increase of local temperature and change in precipitation, and its resultant impact in the community through building permanently functioning early warning system and local area specific strategies that help them to live with the changing climate is required from the government and institutions working in the area.

Keywords: Climate change, Perception, Variability