The Effect of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies on Rural Farm Households’ Income in case of Dilla Zuria Wereda, Gedeo Zone, Sothern Ethiopia

Abstract

The effect of agricultural sector is wide ranging and extends to economic growth, food security, poverty reduction, livelihoods, rural development and the environment. Despite of this, agriculture’s contribution to the economy, it is facing and will continue to face major challenges related to climate change in the years to come and Ethiopia is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Hence, this study is an effort to determine the effect of climate change adaptation strategies on rural farm households’ income level in case of Dilla zuria woreda, Gedeo Zone, Southern Ethiopia. Furthermore, the study hypothesized the impact of household size, gender, education farm size, access to credit and membership to farm based associations /institutions on farmers’ income level. In doing this, the study used primary data which is collected by questionnaires distributed for 374 farm households at the year 2018. In analyzing the data, the researcher employed both binary logit and Ordinary Least Square method of econometric regression. The binary logit model is employed to assess the factors affecting climate change adaptation strategies in Dilla zuria woreda and the Ordinary Least Square regression method is employed to know the effect of climate change adaptation strategies on rural farm households’ income. The study confirms that climate change adaptation strategy is found to be significant in boosting famers’ income level in the woreda. The implication is that local policy makers and the woreda’s agricultural bureau have to work more on creation of awareness for farmers about the importance of climate change adaptation strategies. Moreover, the woreda should try to set up facilities for those farmers for to do climate change mitigation practices.

Keywords: Climate change, adaptation strategies, income level.

DOI: 10.7176/JRDM/69-01

Publication date:September 30^th 2020