Climate Change and Variability Effects on Maize (Zea Mays L) Production, and Farmers Perception in Halaba zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the impacts of climate change and variability on maize production, and perception of farmers to climatic trends Halaba zone, southern Ethiopia. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select study sample. Primary data were collected using key informant interviews, group discussions and household surveys with 156 households. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the collected data. According to the results, about (88.2%) of the respondents have indicated that the rain fall amount has decreased, similarly recorded rainfall data confirm that the annual rainfall was declined by the rate of 8.463 mm annually  over the past 29 years. Coefficient of Variation of rainfall was 49.3%, which is highly variable based on degree of variability. Similarly, 89.5 % of interviewed farmers said that temperature showed an increasing trend, and the recorded data indicated that the mean average temperature was increasing by 0.139ºC per annum. Season rainfall was highly and significantly correlated with maize production. The production of maize recorded positive anomalies in fifteen (15) out of the twenty nine (29) years, and fourteen negative anomalies out of 29 production years. The overall analysis lead to conclude that despite the presence of awareness on climate change and its likely effects on livelihoods of the farmer, development intervention at local level were not systematically designed to address the problems of the resource poor farmers and environmental challenges. In the immediate future there is an urgent need to work on strengthening awareness, development package and disseminate successful climate change adaptation interventions to farmers.

Keywords: Adaptation, Climate change, Impact, Maize, Perception

DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-3-06

Publication date:March 31^st 2020