Determinants of Smallholder Farmers’ Adaptation to Climate Change and Variability: The Case Study of Sire District, Arsi Zone, Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia

Climate change is a worldwide issue that affects everyone livelihood. geographical location and topography in combination with low adaptive capacity entail a high vulnerability to adverse impacts of climate change and variability. The objectives in this study are to investigate smallholder adaptation strategies in Sire District. The study was followed a multi-stage stratified random sampling procedure, where a combination of purposive and random sampling technique were used to select respondents. A farm-level data were collected from 126 households for 2015/16 cropping season and 1983-2011 period climatic data were obtained from Ethiopian Meteorological Agency. The descriptive statistics results show that 90% of -term change in temperature over 1983-2011. The rainfall distribution data imply that high monthly rainfall was recorded in July, August and September. The average annual minimum and maximum temperatures of the study area follow increasing trends while the rainfall data recorded from 1990 to 2011 show that the annual rainfall followed a decreasing trend over the period. For the perceived changes, about 32%-35% of respondents took remedial actions to counteract the impacts of climate change. The result of the logit model highlighted part of determinants (such as sex of household (at 5% level with adjustment to management option), education level, size of productive labor force, family size, socio-economic group, tenure security, off-farm income and agroecology) in line with the hypothesis, and other variables (such as age, soil fertility and market distance) opposing the hypothesis, as main factors that determines part of adaptations options. Then, based on the climate change perceptions and main determinant factors of this study, a corresponding government bodies and development practitioners should create awareness, develop and implement climate smart agriculture and impact of climate change and variability.