Elsevier

Environmental Development

Volume 39, September 2021, 100629
Environmental Development

Climate change and variability awareness and livelihood adaptive strategies among smallholder farmers in semi-arid northern Ghana

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2021.100629Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The dynamic changes in climate substantially affect agricultural production.

  • Smallholder farmers employ livelihood adaptive strategies spatio-temporally to mitigate climate change and variability.

  • The socio-economic characteristics households influence their observation and adaptation to climatic change.

  • Policy intervention should build on farmers' achievements to make them resilient to climate change and vulnerability.

Abstract

This study examined smallholder farmers' observation of climate change and variability, its effect on agricultural output, and the livelihood adaptive strategies being used in response to such dynamic changes. A total of 121 smallholder farmers were randomly selected from three vulnerable rural farming communities in northern Ghana through a mixed methodological approach involving household surveys, interviews and focus group discussions. Data were analysed using descriptive and binary logistic regression with the help of IBM SPSS statistical software package integrated with qualitative thematic analysis involving transcription, categorization and interconnecting. The results show that majority (95.9%) of the smallholders have observed climatic changes in their local ecology with manifestations involving protracted drought (95.9%), unpredictable rainfall pattern (94.2%), high temperature (99.2%), strong winds (66.9%) and frequent flood events (99.2%). As a consequence, smallholders have observed that changes in temperature (99.2%) and rainfall patterns (97.5%) result in decreased agricultural output. In resolving the impacts, these smallholders employ preferred livelihood adaptive strategies involving non-farm diversification (51.2%), crop diversification (75.2%), changes in farm location (76.9%) and agrochemical application (100%) with moderate or high levels of effectiveness across space. The logistic regression results revealed that factors such as age, gender and access to credit significantly influenced smallholder farmers’ observation and adaptation to climate change and variability. The findings suggest the need for a location-specific climate adaptation policy. By this, the local knowledge, adaptive capacity and resilience of smallholder farmers could be built upon to mitigate their vulnerability to food insecurity and poverty.

Introduction

Climate change and variability are no longer mythical. This dynamic change remains a developmental challenge for many countries across the globe, particularly developing countries because of their dependence on climatic conditions for rain-fed agriculture (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2014; Dumenu and Obeng, 2016; Aniah et al., 2019).

Climate change and variability are more prominent in semi-arid regions and it is obvious that fluxes in the quantity and frequency of rainfall contribute to decreasing food production and water availability (Amisah et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2016). Rainfall and temperature variability are critical for agricultural production and if the pattern of precipitation from the time of planting onward is unknown, farmers are inept to tune their cropping systems to improve resources (Bannayan et al., 2010). Erratic rainfall patterns increase people's vulnerability in the short term but may encourage long-term adaptations (Antwi-Agyei et al., 2014; Bele et al., 2014).

The northern regions of Ghana are considered as having the poorest agro-ecology in the country, and climate change and variability impacts are likely to be high in this region than anywhere else in the country, yet, very little attention is given concerning research and policy (Antwi-Agyei et al., 2015). Again, in this region, rainfall-related crop failure has been a common occurrence over the last 2 to 3 decades (Antwi-Agyei, 2012).

Climate variability and change affect agricultural production levels, and disrupt the livelihoods of many farmers (Schmidhuber and Tubiello, 2007). It is expected that climate change and variability will aggravate the poverty and food security situation of smallholder farmers whose livelihoods enormously depend on rain-fed agriculture (Vermeulen et al., 2012). Such impacts are suggested to vary across different spatiotemporal scales (IPCC, 2014). Thus, it is important to generate more understanding of the dynamic impacts of climate change and variability on agriculture across different spatial scales, particularly in a developing country such as Ghana where agriculture provides a major livelihood support to the majority of the population.

Considering the negative impacts of climate change and variability on agricultural systems, the big question is how smallholder farmers who constitute a substantial proportion of many rural populations mitigate the impacts and reduce their poverty levels, particularly those who are located in the semi-arid marginal areas like northern Ghana. Thus, short- and long-term livelihood adaptation strategies have become urgent for many socio-ecological systems, particularly smallholder farmers in vulnerable rural communities (Gandure et al., 2013; Yaro, 2013; Nyantakyi-Frimpong and Bezner-Kerr, 2015; Moroda et al., 2018). It is suggested that the implementation of any livelihood adaptive strategies usually depends on the perception of climate change and variability, and the decision to adapt or not (Deressa et al., 2009; Asrat and Simane, 2017). However, how this is couched in the literature remain gloomy, particularly in relation to farmers’ perceptions and adaptive strategies at the household and community levels (Antwi-Agyei et al., 2017).

There is an increasing body of literature on climate variability and change, particularly in Ghana suggesting the diverse manifestations, impacts and adaptations to the phenomenon (e.g. Codjoe and Owusu, 2011; Fosu-Mensah et al., 2012; Eguavoen, 2013; Asante and Amuakwa-Mensah, 2015; Ibrahim et al., 2019; Yamba et al., 2019) Though we recognize the contribution of these studies to the existing body of knowledge, they are largely focused on understanding climate change at either the individual or household levels leaving important information gap in the literature on local perceptions and adaptations at both the household and community levels.

Moreover, there are emerging research documenting myriads of adaptation strategies including but not limited to crop diversification, non-farm diversification and migration, by smallholder household farmers in many rural communities in response to climate change (e.g. Reidsma et al., 2010; Below et al., 2012; Yaro, 2013; Antwi-Agyei et al., 2014; Dumenu and Obeng, 2016; Shikuku et al., 2017). However, there is a dearth of scientific literature on the effectiveness of those adaptation strategies. Against these backgrounds, this paper used Mamprugu-Maogduri District in the semi-arid landscape of northern Ghana as a case study to contribute to the existing body of literature, by providing important insights on the perceptions of, and livelihood adaptive measures and their effectiveness to climate change risks in vulnerable communities at both the household and community levels using mixed methods.

Through surveys and focus group discussions this study sought to find answers to the following questions: (1) how do rural smallholder farmers observe climate change and variability in vulnerable communities of nothern Ghana? (2) what are the perceived impacts of climate change and variability on agricultural production? And (3) what livelihood adaptive strategies are adopted by smallholders, and how effective are they in resolving the impacts of climate change and variability at the household and community levels? The findings of this study will be crucial for a location-specific policy implementation targeted at building the adaptive capacity and resilience of smallholder farmers to mitigate food insecurity in vulnerable semi-arid rural agricultural settings.

Section snippets

Theoretical framing

Climate change refers to the statistical changes in climate over a longer period of time due to natural variability or human activity while climate variability explains all the variations in climate that last longer than individual weather events (IPCC, 2014). For the avoidance of doubt, these two concepts are used together in this paper as climate change and variability. The manifestations of climate change are not only scientifically proven, but also socially established through individual or

Study area

The Mampurugu-Moagduri District in the northern region of Ghana is located within longitudes 0°35′W and 1°45′W and latitudes 9°55′N and 10°35′N (Fig. 1). In relative terms, the district is bordered to the west by West Mamprusi, Bulsa South District to the north, Sissala East to the northeast, Wa East to the southwest, North Gonja to the south and Kumbungu District to the southeast. The district has a population of 46 894 people with nearly 50 percent being males and females constituting just a

Demographic characteristics of respondents

Smallholder farmers’ age, educational level and gender orientation were characterized (Table 2).

Majority, 84 (69.4%) of the farmers were aged between 41 and 50 years while 23 (19.0%) and 14 (11.6%) of the respondents were aged 51–60 years and 61 years or more respectively. From Table 2, 61 (50.4%) respondents were males whiles 60 (49.6%) of the respondents were females. Also, majority of the study respondents (88 or 72.7%) had no formal education and the spatial spread was 17 (14.0%), 40

Demographic characteristics of respondents

Research has shown that personal characteristics such as age, gender, education and experience in farming influence people's perceptions of climate change (Below et al., 2012; Antwi-Agyei et al., 2014; Belay et al., 2017). The minimum age of 41 years, qualified one to be a respondent. This was very essential because to be able to reveal the necessary information about climate change and variability that has occurred in one's immediate environment is often associated with how long one has lived

Conclusion

Climate change and variability remains a development challenge for many households and communities sub-Saharan Africa countries, due to over-dependence on rain-fed agriculture which is considered very vulnerable (Kotir, 2011; Antwi-Agyei et al., 2014). This research examined smallholder farmers' observation of climate variability, its effect on agricultural output, and the livelihood adaptive strategies and effectiveness in resolving such dynamic changes in the Mampurugu-Moagduri District of

Compliance with ethical standards

Informed consent was sought from all participants involved in the study.

Funding

The authors received no funding for this research.

Supplementary data

No supplementary data is available for this research.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge all participants and research assistants who were involved in the research. We are also grateful to the anonymous peer reviewers whose invaluable comments and suggestions helped in shaping the quality of the paper.

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