climate change preparedness and adaptation: a case of smallholder farmers in central uganda

Joshua Zake, Doctoral Candidate

Centre for Development Research, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences

Email: joshua.zake@boku.ac.at or joszake@gmail.com

Climate change preparedness and adaptation; A case of smallholder farmers in Central Uganda

Presented at the training course on livelihood systems dynamics in rural development (1 SSt S, 25 2014/15 - 1693040), 11/03/15, Centre for

Development Research.

Outline of presentation

• Definition of selected terms

• Examples of climate change disasters in central Uganda

• Impacts of climate change on livelihoods of smallholder farmers

• Preparedness for climate change disaster impacts at community level

• Farmers responses – early actions for adaption and mitigation

• Discussions/interactions

Definition of selected terms

• Climate is the prevailing or average weather conditions of a place as determined by the temperature and meteorological change over a period of time. Various factors determine climate and the most important are rainfall and temperature.

• Climate variability is defined as the change in the mean state and other statistics (such as standard deviations, the occurrence of extremes) of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales beyond that of individual weather events.

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Definition of selected terms

• Climate change adaptation refers to adjustments in practices, processes, or structures to take into account changing climate conditions, to moderate potential damages, or to benefit from opportunities associated with climate change.

• Disaster is a sudden event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community or society and causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the community’s or society’s ability to cope using its own resources.

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Definition of selected terms

Disaster preparedness refers to the knowledge and capacities developed by stakeholders to effectively anticipate, respond to and recover from the impacts of likely, imminent or current disaster events or conditions.

It is based on sound analyses of disaster risks and good linkages with early-warning systems.

Early warning early action is routinely taking humanitarian action before a disaster happens, making full use of scientific information on all time scales.

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Study site• Banana and Coffee are major food and cash in Uganda.

• Uganda is 11th largest producer of coffee in the World and 2nd largest producer of bananas in Africa.

• Central Uganda is the traditional banana growing region from which it spread to other parts of the Country.

• Banana grown as monoculture or banana-coffee agroforestry.

• Dominant soils are highly old weathered Ferralsols.

• Rainfall is bimodal; Annual average is 1320 mm.

• Climate variability disasters cause destruction of plantations increasing the risks of food shortages.

Study site: Mpigi district, Central Uganda

Coordinates for Mpigi district: 000 14’N 32020’E

Zake and Hauser (2014).

Paper 2– Zake et al. (2015). J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci.

Materials and methods

• Literature review to understand knowledge about the research focus.

• Preparation of research tools i.e. semi-structured survey questionnaires and check lists for key informants and focus group discussions.

• Survey research tools were tailored to integrate gender issues as appropriate.

• The were pre-tested before the full scale administration.

Materials and methods

Farmer selection

•The farmers who participated in the interviews and the focus group discussions were selected randomly using existing lists of official registered farmers’ groups at sub-county level and list of respondents involved in the household survey, respectively.

•On-farm interviews were conducted among 133 farmers using the semi-structured questionnaires.

•2 focus group discussions were conducted involving at least 15 respondents.

Data collection and analyses

• Interactive interviews were conducted with 30 key informants at national and local levels.

• Data generated using the semi-structured survey questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS 16 to generate percentages for variables and correlations between the variables using Chi-square.

Key results

Paper 1 - Zake and Hauser (2014).

Impacts of climate change disasters

• Destruction of crops – reduced or no harvests; no food for eat

• Death of livestock – loss of products (milk, eggs, manure) and security

• Overall results in household food insecurity, poor nutrition and health

• Loss of income – failure to meet basic livelihood needs..

Paper 1 - Zake and Hauser (2014).

Table 2. Respondent’s perceptions of occurrence of climate change disasters in the last 2–5 years vs. engaging in off-farm income-generating activities as a result of climate variability (N = 133).

Paper 1 - Zake and Hauser (2014).

Figure 1. Interaction between key actors and farmers in the implementation of community early warning actions in Mpigi district.

Paper 1 - Zake and Hauser (2014).

Key results

Paper 1 - Zake and Hauser (2014).

Key results

Paper 1 - Zake and Hauser (2014).

Key results

Paper 1 - Zake and Hauser (2014).

Conclusion

• Farmers perceived prolonged droughts, increased pests and diseases outbreaks in crops and livestock as a consequence of climate change as the major climate change disasters.

• The inadequate implementation of climate change disaster preparedness strategies at community level triggers early actions by farmers.

Recommendations

• Effective implementation of disaster preparedness strategies is needed to avert the current negative climate change disasters impacts on community livelihood;

• Farmer’s early actions for addressing climate change disasters should be integrated in the implementation of the climate change disaster policy strategies at household, village and sub-county levels in Mpigi district.

• Strengthening of climate change disaster safety nets based on off-farm income-generating activities should be explored

Selected references for further reading

• IFRC – International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (2008a). Early Warning > Early Action.

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2001). Third assessment report. United Nations Environment Program.

• United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction. (2009). Terminology on disaster risk reduction. Geneva: United Nations.

• Paper 1 - Zake, J. and Hauser, M. (2014). Farmers' perceptions of implementation of climate variability disaster preparedness strategies in Central Uganda. Journal of Environmental Hazards. doi:10.1080/17477891.2014.910491

• Paper 2 - Zake, J., Pietsch, S. A., Friedel, J. K. and Zechmeister-Boltenstern, S. (2015). Can agroforestry improve soil fertility and carbon storage in smallholder banana farming systems?. J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci. doi: 10.1002/jpln.201400281

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Danke!!

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