Managing Climate Risks Using Seasonal Climate Forecast Information in Vhembe District in Limpopo Province, South Africa

Abstract

The majority of small -scale farmers in the Vhembe district have been experiencing extreme climatic risk, high climate variability and change for a very long time. The majority of these small -scale farmers are vulnerable to all types of climate risk due to their low adaptive capacity, lack of access to technology as a result of level of education, lack of financial resources and also among other things low level of resilience and high level of poverty amongst these farmers. However, the majority of these small -scale farmers in the Vhembe district use different adaptive strategies as a way of preserving assets for future livelihoods including: (a) Drought resistant varieties, (b) Crop diversification, (c) Plant crops that require less water, (d) Some of these small -scale farmers use local climate indicators to monitor climate risk, (e) Adjust fertilizer input, (f) Use rainwater harvesting techniques. Different institutions in the country including the South African Weather Services, and the Agricultural Research Council, and the Limpopo Provincial Department of Agriculture, issue and disseminate the seasonal forecasts information to different districts including the Vhembe. Most of the time, the information has been disseminated to end-users in simple ways, but the need to find more out more about end users' needs is still required.

Adapting to the Impacts of Drought by Smallholder Farmers in Sekhukhune District in Limpopo Province, South Africa

“…This had serious implications on the income of the smallholder farmers across the province including Greater Sekhukhune district. Similar trends of temperature effects were also depicted by Mpandeli (2014) in the Vhembe district. Due to high extreme climatic events and climatic variability and change smallholder farmers in the Greater Sekhukhune district should be able to access climate advisory information all the time due to poor rainfall distribution in the district.…”

“…As was reported by Mpandeli (2014), droughts across the Limpopo Province have impacted on crop & livestock production on top of their impact water supplies for irrigation activities, mining, and domestic use. It was also noted that the meteorological drought is the result of the negative deviation of rainfall from the mean and is normally the most common indicator for drought (Wilhite et al, 2000;Wilhelmi & Wilhite, 2002).…”

“…Other smallholder farmers in the district plant early mature crop varieties in order to counter act any natural vagaries. Greater Sekhukhune district is different from the Vhembe district according to Mpandeli (2014) because Vhembe district is located in micro-climatic areas. In the Vhembe district, for example, the highest average monthly amount of rainfall received is normally from November to March every year (Mpandeli, 2006).…”

“…According to Mpandeli (2014), the average annual rainfall in the Sekhukhune district is less than 600 mm. The rainy season starts in late October in most areas of the Limpopo Province especially in the Sekhukhune district.…”

“…According to Mpandeli (2014) poor vegetation usually means poor grazing and therefore poor cattle condition. This can further translate into loss of livelihoods as poor cattle often receive poor market prices.…”