Adaptation strategies of cattle farmers in the dry and sub-humid tropical zones of Benin in the context of climate change

Abstract

Cattle farming is directly impacted by climate change (CC), as it utilizes resources whose seasonality and productivity are strongly climate-dependent. Farmers respond to the negative influence of CC by implementing different adaptation strategies, where choices are informed by many factors. This study aims at analyzing the adaptation strategies of cattle farmers in the dry tropical zone (DTZ) and sub-humid tropical zone (STZ) of Benin with regard to climate change, as well as the determinants for the choice of these strategies. For that matter, 360 cattle farmers were surveyed. Data collected were related to the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the cattle farmers, their perception and adaptation to CC. The data collected were subjected to frequency analysis and binary logistic regression. The results showed that livestock farmers were partly aware of climate related with CC, especially the increase of temperature. The most important adaptation strategies mentioned by cattle farmers were mobility, integration of livestock and crop husbandry, provision of concentrate feed, reduction of herd size, diversification of livestock, and forage cropping. Farming experience, cattle herd size, membership in an organization, number of farm assets, level of education, and climate zone were the major variables affecting farmers' adaptation strategies. From this study, we recommend that any program promoting adaption of climate change resilience among farmers, especially cattle farmers, should take the identified factors into account.

Perception and adaptation of pastoralists to climate variability and change in Morocco's arid rangelands

“…The level of education reached by the pastoralist positively and significantly influences the likelihood that he will undertake some CC adaptation responses, namely the diversification of animal species, the practice of fattening livestock and the conversion of livestock capital into land capital. Other studies corroborate this finding by showing that the education level is a key factor affecting the farmers' adaptation in response to CC (Opiyo et al, 2015;Ndamani and Watanabe, 2016;Asfaw et al, 2019;Idrissou et al, 2020). In contrast, this factor has been found to be a non-significant determinant of CC adaptation, according to Arimi (2014), Balew et al…”

“…In order to identify the key factors influencing the adoption of the main adaptation practices to CC used by pastoralists in the high plateaus of eastern Morocco, a binary logistic regression analysis was performed. This regression method is the most appropriate and commonly used in adoption decision studies involving binary choices such as Kgosikoma et al (2018); Hirpha et al (2020) and Idrissou et al (2020). According to Gujarati (2004) cited by Nabikolo et al (2012) and Idrissou et al (2020), the equation of the binary logit model is presented as follows:…”

“…This regression method is the most appropriate and commonly used in adoption decision studies involving binary choices such as Kgosikoma et al (2018); Hirpha et al (2020) and Idrissou et al (2020). According to Gujarati (2004) cited by Nabikolo et al (2012) and Idrissou et al (2020), the equation of the binary logit model is presented as follows:…”

“…The literature concerning adaptation to CC in agricultural systems indicates that adaptation is influenced by a set of socio-economic, institutional, sociocultural, geographic and perceptual factors (Dasgupta et al, 2014;Opiyo et al, 2015;Idrissou et al, 2020;Snaibi, 2020a;Nnko et al, 2021). These include the socioeconomic characteristics of farmers such as age, education level, family size, livestock size; institutional factors like credit access, training and extension J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f services; agroecological settings (location) as well as perceptual climate variables such as perceptions of long-term changes in rainfall and temperature.…”

A systems approach toward climate resilient livelihoods: A case study in Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam

“…Especially, smallholder farmers and poor communities in developing countries are more vulnerable to the impact of climate change ( Ancog et al., 2019 ; Frimpong et al., 2020 ; Kurukulasuriya and Rosenthal, 2013 ; Marie et al., 2020 ; Sarker and Rashid, 2012 ). As such, there is a high need for adaptation strategies ( Adzawla et al., 2019 ; Aniah et al., 2019 ; Idrissou et al., 2020 ; Muema et al., 2018 ), particularly ecosystem-based adaptation ( Maina et al., 2020 ) and/or area-specific adaptation measures ( Marie et al., 2020 ).…”