Climate Change Adaptation Practices for Sustainable Sorghum Production in Drylands of Ethiopia

Climate variability and extreme events are major threats of food production that exacerbates the existing food security challenges in developing countries where agriculture is climate sensitive while adaptive capacity is low to remain productive under undoubtedly changing climate. On the other hand, the dynamically increasing human population increase the demands for more food than ever in the past while the worst climate change scenarios indicate as it would get even harder in fifty to hundred years in the future. Understanding the climate, crop and cropping system have significant importance in effective management of climate risks and designing suitable adaptation strategies for sustainable food production. Therefore, the main objecive of the study was to evaluate and identify climate change adaptation practices for sorghum production over Kobo, Melkassa and Miesso as representative growing agroecologies of Ethiopia. The study was conducted using DSSAT-CSM approach depending on EMI’s historical climate data and climate change data from Global Climate Models (GCMs) for mid (2040-2069) and end-term (2070-2099) periods using delta method downscaling while soil profile data was used from secondary sources. Three planting windows (16<sup>th</sup> June to 30<sup>th</sup> June, 1<sup>st</sup> July to 15<sup>th</sup> July and 16<sup>th</sup> July to 30<sup>th</sup> July) were used to evaluate planting date response of ESH-1, ESH-2 and Melkam Sorghum varieties to be tested in early, normal (intermidate) and late planting, respectively. The result indicated that the rainfall is expected to be increased by 3.1% at Melkassa, 4.5% at Kobo and to 7.9% at Miesso by 2050s whrereas 9.2%, 12.5% and 20.4% increment change is expected by 2080s, respectivley. The projected temperature indicated an increament of close to 2.3°C to 3.8°C. The sorghum yield response of future climate over Kobo and Miesso in both mid-term and end-term is riskier as compared to Melkassa, the one in intermediate agroecology. In the case of end-term, the yield reduction ranges from 38 percent for Melkam Varity over Kobo to 25 percent over Melkassa. On the other hand, combination of early planting and increasing the fertilizer rate by 50% would increase sorghum productivity in all cases. In general, the results indicated that climate change would aggravate the ongoing food production challenges unless appropriate adaptation plans be designed and implemented. Indeed, the findings of this study would have a potential impact for policy makers, researchers, and agricultural experts by looking for appropriate adaptation options that enable sustainable production under future climate changes scenarios.