Measuring Ethiopian Farmers Vulnerability To Climate Change Across Regional States

Abstract: This study uses the Ricardian approach to analyze the impact of climate change on Ethiopian agriculture and to describe farmer adaptations to varying environmental factors. The study analyzes data from 11 of the country's 18 agro-ecological zones, representing more than 74 percent of the country, and survey of 1,000 farmers from 50 districts. Regressing of net revenue on climate, household, and soil variables show that these variables have a significant impact on the farmers' net revenue per hectare. The study carries out a marginal impact analysis of increasing temperature and changing precipitation across the four seasons. In addition, it examines the impact of uniform climate scenarios on farmers' net revenue per hectare. Additionally, it analyzes the net revenue impact of predicted climate scenarios from three models for the years 2050 and 2100. In general, the results indicate that increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation are both damaging to Ethiopian agriculture. Although the analysis did not incorporate the carbon fertilization effect, the role of technology, or the change in prices for the future, significant information for policy-making can be extracted.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book aims to inspire decision makers and practitioners to change their approach to climate planning in the tropics through the application of modern technologies for characterizing local climate and tracking vulnerability and risk, and using decision-making tools. Drawing on 16 case studies conducted mainly in the Caribbean, Central America, Western and Eastern Africa, and South East Asia it is shown how successful integration of traditional and modern knowledge can enhance disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change in the tropics. The case studies encompass both rural and urban settings and cover different scales: rural communities, cities, and regions. In addition, the book looks to the future of planning by addressing topics of major importance, including residual risk integration in local development plans, damage insurance and the potential role of climate vulnerability reduction credits. In many regions of the tropics, climate planning is growing but has still very low quality. This book identifies the weaknesses and proposes effective solutions.

This study uses the Ricardian approach to analyze the impact of climate change on Ethiopian agriculture and to describe farmer adaptations to varying environmental factors. The study analyzes data from 11 of the country's 18 agro-ecological zones, representing more than 74 percent of the country, and survey of 1,000 farmers from 50 districts. Regressing of net revenue on climate, household, and soil variables show that these variables have a significant impact on the farmers' net revenue per hectare.The study carries out a marginal impact analysis of increasing temperature and changing precipitation across the four seasons. In addition, it examines the impact of uniform climate scenarios on farmers' net revenue per hectare. Additionally, it analyzes the net revenue impact of predicted climate scenarios from three models for the years 2050 and 2100. In general, the results indicate that increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation are both damaging to Ethiopian agriculture. Although the analysis did not incorporate the carbon fertilization effect, the role of technology, or the change in prices for the future, significant information for policy-making can be extracted.

'This is a well researched, thorough and impressive work on climate change and agriculture in Africa. I recommend it to students, researchers and practitioners working on climate change issues' Jabavu Clifford Nkomo, senior programme specialist, IDRC This landmark book encompasses a comprehensive assessment of the potential economic impacts of future climate change, and the value of adaptation measures in Africa for different zones, regions, countries and farm types. Researchers developed and applied multiple analytical procedures to assess quantitatively how climate affects current agricultural systems in Africa, enabling them to predict how these systems may be affected in the future by climate change under various global warming scenarios, and suggesting what role adaptation could play. The study is the first to combine spatially referenced household survey data with climatic data at both national and international levels. This book provides vital knowledge about the impacts of climate change on Africa, serving as a guide to policy intervention strategies and investment in adaptation measures. It makes a major contribution to the analysis of climate change impacts and developing adaptation strategies, especially in the highly vulnerable farming communities in the developing world. Published with CEEPA and supported by the World Bank.

Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Agrarian Studies, grade: Very Good, , course: Population and Socioeconomic Development Planning, language: English, abstract: Most previous studies on vulnerability of smallholder farmer’s livelihood to climatic hazards had focused on large scale, global, regional or national levels. In addition, they gave more focuses to assessment of impacts of climatic hazards to farmers than assessment of farmer’s vulnerability to climatic hazards. Thus, this study was designed to bridge this gap by assessing vulnerability of farmer’s livelihood at household level measured as perceived sensitivity and lack of adaptive capacity to climatic hazards and by exploring sets of socioeconomic indicators that significantly determine vulnerability of farmers’ livelihoods. Cross-sectional data was collected through household survey from 379 randomly selected respondents which were also complemented with qualitative assessments. Principal component analysis was used to identify major socioeconomic indicators that contribute to vulnerability of farmer’s livelihood using orthogonal axis rotation in SPSS version 20. Binary logit model was used to identify principal socioeconomic indicators that significantly influence sensitivity and adaptive capacity of livelihoods of sampled farmers. The findings revealed that households that are heterogeneous in location of residence, sources of income, ownership to animals have significant influence on perceived sensitivity of farmers to climatic hazards. However, socioeconomic indicators such as age, gender, family size, have insignificant influence on sensitivity of farmer’s livelihood to climatic hazards. Gender, marital status, educational status of household head, coping mechanisms like grain & cash saving, NRM practices has significant influence on perceived adaptive capacity of farmers. Yet, access to social interconnectedness such as idir or iqub, family relatives, and cost of drinking water has insignificant influence on perceived adaptive capacity of farmers. Currently, 59%, 38% and 3% of sampled farmers have overall vulnerability status of low, moderate and high respectively. The overall conclusion is that differences in status of vulnerability of their livelihoods are attributed to differences in their present socioeconomic attributes. Community should strengthen existing hazard coping mechanisms whilst GOs and NGOs should support farmers in diversification of income sources and restocking of animals. Active community engagement in planning and execution of disaster risk reduction strategies and practices is also indispensable.