Adaptation to climate variability among crop farmers in Nakaseke Sub-County, Nakaseke District, Uganda

Abstract

Climate variability is one of the most serious environmental challenges impacting heavily on agriculture and crop farming in particular. Hence, this study sought to investigate the current nature of climate variability and its effects on crop farming, the various adaptation practices as well as farmers’ adaptive capacity in Nakaseke district. The study employed simple random sampling to select the final households for the study while purposive sampling was used to select Key Informants. Again, the questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from 196 randomly selected respondents from the three parishes in the study area. Both the Focus Group Discussion guide and the structured interview guide were used to collect qualitative data during FGD and interviews conducted with key informants respectively. The results of the study suggest that crop farmers are highly aware of the major changes in climate, most notably increase in temperatures, increased occurrence of drought and decrease in the amount of precipitation. The study further identified premature drying of crops in the garden, increased cases of crop pests and diseases, decrease in soil fertility and loss of soil moisture as the most remarkable effects of climate variability on crop farming. In response, crop farmers have taken up a set of thirteen (13) adaptation practices. The three top most practices being; mulching the garden, regular spraying and adjusting planting dates. The study further found that farmers had a low capacity to adapt to the effects of climate variability which is mostly substantiated by inadequate land, insufficient knowledge and information, inadequate financial capacity, low levels of education, limited sources of water for irrigation among other constraints. One of the salient recommendations in this study is that farmers’ adaptive capacity ought to be greatly enhanced through improving access to crop varieties that are; drought resistant, quick maturing and above all, resistant to the major crop pests and diseases. In addition, all farmers ought to be provided with timely and reliable seasonal climate forecasts, improved access to financial services, improving access to water for irrigation, improving the road networks among other relevant and carefully thought facilities.