Farmers’ perceived climate change impacts and their decisions to adopt autonomous adaptation strategies to climate variability in eastern Ethiopia

Smallholder farmers' in Ethiopia are experiencing adverse impacts of climate variability and change as they are dependent on subsistence rainfed farming. Previous studies focused on factors influencing adoption of an individual adaptation option without differentiating them as autonomous, planned and anticipatory options. This study intended to identify Kersa District, eastern Ethiopia, farmers' perceived impacts of climate change and the factors that influence their decisions to adopt autonomous adaptation strategies to climate variability. A total of 384 farmers were randomly selected to participate in the study. Two key informant interviews and four focus group discussions were used to collect in-depth information that complements the survey. The results indicated that mostly farmers' receive information on climate change from neighbours (70.05%) and family members (68.75%) rather than extension agents (47.92%) and district experts (36.20%). The most perceived impacts of climate change were decreasing rainfall, water shortage, frequent drought, increasing temperature, changing precipitation, and crop failures. The major autonomous adaptation strategies used were soil and water conservation (63.54%), crop diversification (60.68%), crop rotation (55.21%), tree planting (46.88%), altering planting date's (44.53%) and improved varieties (41.41%). A probit econometric model results showed crop-income share, number of livestock, total land owned, crop farming experience, and being male-headed household positively influenced decisions to adopt the adaptation strategies. The findings spotlighted important policy actions, among others, improving access to climate change information particularly among female farmers, integrating informal and formal sources of information, and enhancing the skills of extension agents and district experts. The findings also spotlighted future research directions.