Determinants of Rural Farmers’ Adoption of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies: Evidence from the Amathole District Municipality, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Abstract

Abstract-There is consensus that rural farmers' livelihoods are vulnerable to climate change. Also, literature suggests that locally driven adaptations are critical complementary strategies that can be targeted to reduce the negative effects of climate change in the short-run. Thus far, through using a cross sectional survey sample of 200 rural farmers from the Amathole district municipality of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, the paper estimated farmers' climate change adaptation strategies, adaptation portfolio diversity and factors that condition farmers' adoption behavior. The results reveal several crop, livestock and non-farm based adaptation strategies skewed in favour of crop and non-farm floral based techniques. The results further indicate that rural farmers in general are low adopters of climate change adaptation strategies with poor adaptation portfolio diversity. Regression estimates reveal several socio-economic and institutional factors as drivers of adoption and adaptation portfolio diversity worth targeting to promote the ability of rural farmers to cope with climate change.

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“…Moreover, 49.6% of the respondents had a low level of adoption, followed by medium (25.4%) and high (15.6%), which showed that most farmers had adopted one or more climate change adaptation measures (Mean 4.11, SD 1.73). The findings were consistent with the findings of Taruvinga et al (2016) [75] in South Africa, who indicated that 62.5% of farmers were classified in the low adopter category, regarding adaptation measures. Table 7.…”

“…Variables related to extension contact (number of on-farm demonstrations attended, number of extension meetings or training sessions attended, and number of extension visits received) were found to have a nonsignificant influence on adoption. This result was similar to that from the study by Taruvinga et al (2016) [75], who found that access to extension services was not a determinant of adaptation to climate change. It has also been noted, however, that many previous studies have found that farmers with access to extension services had a higher probability of adopting adaptation strategies [48,63,69,[77][78][79].…”

“…Responding to climate change actions and farmers' education level can work together in three ways; education fills knowledge gaps on causes and impacts of climate change, challenges apathy and creates a desire for adaptation measures to mitigate the effects of climate change, and furnishes the technical knowledge to adopt the innovations within the constraints of local farming systems [76]. These results were consistent with those from several previous studies [48,63,69,75,[77][78][79].…”

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“…Clearly, adapting to climate change at the farm-level, by modifying current practices is a crucial coping strategy. The prevailing response strategies often draw on existing mechanisms such as altering farming systems or modifying farm technology and diversifying income sources (Taruvinga et al, 2016). The array of adaptation techniques implemented in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa to deal with the vicissitudes of climate includes intercropping or crop rotation, adoption of high yielding improved crop varieties resistant to climatic stress or more tolerant of parched conditions, varying of time of planting and diversifying into mixed crop livestock systems or off-farm occupations.…”

“…The choice of adaptation options is shaped by the socio-ecological context, infrastructure and institutional factors (Ravera et al, 2016). Specifically, adaptation is influenced among others by age, gender, household size, education, farm size, farming experience, farm income, access to credit and extension services, irrigation and distance to market and off-farm employment (Deressa et al, 2009;Oluwatusin, 2014;Taruvinga et al, 2016).…”