Determinants of Farmers’ Preference for Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change: Evidence from North Shoa Zone of Amhara Region, Ethiopia
[1]
Negash Mulatu Debalke, School of Economics, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Studies on climate change adaptation identified the importance of agro-ecology based research for designing context-specific policies and programs to climate change. This study, therefore, applied a case-study approach to examine farmers’ preference for climate change adaptation strategies and the factors deriving their preference. Thus, households’ preference for five types of climate change adaptation strategies is identified and the determinants of the preference are analyzed using Rank-Ordered Logit Model. The result shows that multiple cropping is the most preferred adaptation strategy to climate change, while livestock production is the least. The result also indicates that gender, age, farming experience and education level of the household head, household size, and farm and nonfarm income; farm size and farm distance to homestead; agricultural extension services and access to climate forecast information; farmers’ perceptions on long-term average temperature and rainfall affect farmers’ preference for the adaptation strategies. Thus, policies and programs aiming to reduce climate change impacts through adaptation need to consider important roles of these factors. The main barriers to climate change adaptation are lack of information or knowledge, shortage of money, shortage of land, and unsuitability of land and poor potential for irrigation. Although adaptation is among the policy options for reducing the negative impacts of climate change, it is challenged by these constraints. Therefore, promoting investments and strengthening efforts to addressing these constraints is suggested to enhance farmers’ adaptation capacity and thus adaptation to climate change.
Climate Change, Adaptation Strategy, Preference, Perception, Rank-Ordered Logit Model
[1]
Asfaw, A. and Admassie, A. (2004). The role of education on the adoption of chemical fertilizer under different socioeconomic environments in Ethiopia. Agricultural Economics 30 (3): 215-228.
[2]
Deressa, T., Hassen, R., Alemu, T., Yesuf, M. and Ringler, C.(2009). Determinants of farmers’ choice of adaptation methods to climate change in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia. Journal of Global Environmental Change 19: 248–255.
[3]
Fok, D., Paap, P. and Dijk, B.V. (2010). A rank-ordered logit model with unobserved heterogeneity in ranking capabilities. Journal of applied econometrics.
[4]
Fussel, H.M. (2007). Adaptation planning for climate change: concepts, assessment approaches, and key lessons. Sustainability Science 2(2):265–275.
[5]
Hassan, R. and Nhemachena, C. (2008). Determinants of African farmers’ strategies for adapting to climate change: Multinomial choice analysis. African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 2(1).
[6]
Kato, E., Ringler, C., Yesuf, M. and Bryan, E. (2009). Soil and water conservation technologies: A buffer against production risk in the face of climate change: Insights from the Nile Basin in Ethiopia. IFPRI Discussion Paper 871, Washington.
[7]
Kurukulasuriya, P. and Mendelsohn, R.(2007). Crop selection: Adapting to climate change in Africa. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4307, Rural & Urban Development Team.
[8]
Long, J.S. and Freese, J. (2006). Regression models for categorical dependent variables using Stata. Second edition. College Station: Stata Press.
[9]
McFadden, D. (1974). Measurement of urban travel demand. Journal of Public Economics 3:303-328.
[10]
MoFED (2006). Building on progress: A plan for accelerated and sustained development to end poverty. Volume I, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
[11]
Nhemachena, C. and Hassan, R. (2007). Micro-level analysis of farmers’ adaptation to climate change in Southern Africa. Discussion Paper 00714, IFPRI, Washington.
[12]
Padilla, A.J., McSorley, C., Requejo, A., Watson, N. and Williams, M. (2003). Review of empirical methods for identifying and measuring switching costs. Economic Discussion Paper 5.
[13]
USAID (2007). Adapting to climate variability and change: A guidance manual for development planning. USAID, Washington, DC.
[14]
Verbeek, M. (2008). A guide to modern econometrics. 3rd edition. Jhon Wiley and Sons, Ltd.