Determinants of Choice of Pastoralists Climate Variability Adaptation Strategies: A Case of Borena Zone, Southern Ethiopia.

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Date

2019-10

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

Climate variability and extremes adversely affect the livestock sector directly and indirectly by aggravating the prevalence of livestock diseases, distorting production system and the sector profitability. This paper aims to describe the effect of climate variability and extremes on livestock production and investigate the basic factors that affect the choice of climate variability adaptation strategies of pastoralists in Borena zone southern Ethiopia. Data were collected through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods using household questionnaire, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Areal grid dikadal rainfall and temperatures data from 1981 to 2016 were collected from national meteorological agency. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed and interpreted using appropriate analytical tools and procedures. The result revealed that the the presence of very high differences of annual and seasonal rainfall amount between the highest and lowest volume of rainfall across the years, high variability of annual and seasonal rainfall and the unpredictable starting and stopping time of rainfall could create favorable environment for livestock diseases and adversely affect the livestock system. Majority of the pastoralists have been highly encountered the intensity of climate related problem like water quality and availability, shortage of grazing land, high risk of livestock diseases. Some of the sample respondents in the study area have not taken the appropriate adaptation measures to climate variability due to different constraint. These includes: lack of knowledge, lack of capital, lack of credit access, lack of information and unobserved climatic related problems are the major ones. Besides this, lacks of support from the governmental and non-governmental bodies as well as not giving emphasis by the pastoralists and agro-pastoralists themselves are also among the barriers to climate variability adaptation in the study area.

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Keywords

Adaptation Strategy, Climate Variability, Multinomial Logit Model, Borena zone

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