CLIMATE CHANGE AND CHOICE OF ADAPTATION STRATEGIES AMONG SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN SINANA DISTRICT OF BALE ZONE, SOUTHEASTERN ETHIOPIA

The impact of climate change on agricultural activities in developing countries has been worsening overtime. The impact is mainly manifested by increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation levels that hurts severely overall agricultural production and productivity. This is particularly true in developing countries like Ethiopia where adaptive capacities are perceived to be low due to various factors. This study aims to identify farmers’ adaptation strategies to climate change in Sinana district of Bale zone Oromia Regional State, south eastern Ethiopia. Both primary and secondary data sources were used for the study. Primary data were collected from a randomly selected 200 sample households through interview and focus group discussion. Relevant secondary data were also obtained from other secondary sources. To analyze the data, both descriptive statistics and Multivariate Probit Model were applied. The result of the model shows that the likelihood of households to adopt irrigation, improved varieties of crops, crop diversification and soil conservation practices were 45.8%, 52.4%, 64.9%,and 41.2%, respectively. The result also shows that the joint probability of using all adaptation strategies was only 1.7% and the joint probability of failure to adopt all of the adaptation strategies was 3.3%. The model result also shows that that level of education, family size, land holding, use of credit, and access to media, extension contact, farm income, non-farm income, age, and market distance have a statistically significant impact on climate change adaptation strategies. Therefore, future policy should focus on awareness creation on climate change through different sources such as media and extension, facilitating the availability of credit especially to adaptation technologies, enhancing research on use of new crop varieties that are more suited to drier conditions, improving farmers farm and non-farm income earning opportunities, improving their educational level, and improving their access to markets. Moreover, providing necessary inputs and giving fair professional service can help to build adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers.2