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Malawi is a country in southern Africa facing high climate variability and many agricultural challenges. This paper examines farmers' coping strategies for crop failure and the determinants of their choices using household level data from rural southern Malawi. The results highlight that farmers are not responding directly to climate variability, b...
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The village baseline study of Toune Mosquée village in the CCAFS benchmark site Kaffrine in Senegal took place from June 2 to 4, 2011. Natural resources in the village are in a progressive state of degradation. The ‘protected’ forest has almost disappeared, the soils have low fertility and are degraded, and crop production is not sufficient to meet...
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... This research investigated farmers' adaptation measures in different agro-ecologies and determinants of adaptation mechanisms to climate change hazards in the Bure Zuria district. Studies show that farmers' adaptation choices can be influenced by various socio-economic and biophysical factors (Ashraf et al., 2014;Berman et al., 2014;Coulibaly et al., 2015;Opiyo et al., 2015). Some of these include sex, age, education, agroecology, livestock holding, off-farm income, access to credit, and extension services. ...
Climate change and related extreme events have become global challenges in ensuring sustainable development. This affects water availability and agricultural production, particularly in developing countries. This study explored the factors affecting farmers' adaptation mechanisms to climate change in different agro-ecological zones of the Bure Zuria district of northwestern Ethiopia. A household survey, focus group discussion, key informant interviews, and observations were used to acquire primary data on farmers' socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, adaptation strategies and potential barriers. About 190 randomly selected households from different agro-ecologies were included in this study. Moreover, reports and published sources were used to acquire secondary data. Data were analyzed using a multinomial logit regression model and descriptive statistics. The results indicated that soil and water conservation practices (26.7%) were the main adaptation responses in highland agro-ecology. In contrast, supplementary feeding for livestock (56%) was the main adaptation response to the adverse effects of climate extremes in lowland agro-ecology. Farmers identified land scarcity (25.84%) and shortage of water for irrigation (28.57%) as major barriers to adaptation in the highland and lowland agro-ecologies, respectively. In addition, agro-ecology, education level, age, active labor, number of livestock (TLU), off-farm income, frequency of extension contacts, credit access, and market access were decisive factors affecting farmers’ adaptation mechanisms to withstand extreme climatic events. In conclusion, soil and water conservation practices are more practiced in highland areas than in lowland areas. Because the steepness of farmlands and erodible soils increase farmers' vulnerability to flood hazards in highland areas than in lowland areas. It is suggested that investigations on the climate change-induced gender-differentiated impacts shall be conducted to design all-inclusive and effective responses.
... The drought makes farmers more vulnerable, and leaves many of them in a cycle of poverty. This is probably why farmers demand adaptation strategies to cope with drought-induced losses rather than short-term and useless responses (Coulibaly et al., 2015). The government motivates people in drought-prone areas to engage in harm prevention through water resource protection (Keshavarz & Karami, 2016). ...
... The notable decrease in streamflow from the 1980s to 1990s is consistent with the general climate pattern, as also reported by other researchers such as Nkhoma et al. (2021) who observed a 49.8% reduction in decadal rainfall from the 1980s to 90 s over the Wamkurumadzi River Watershed in Southern Malawi. Similarly, Coulibaly et al. (2015) and McSweeney et al. (2010) noted that climate regimes in Malawi portrayed a significant negative shift in the early 1990s. ...
The sensitivity of watersheds to climatic and land use alterations remains subject of scientific interest globally. In this study, we analysed hydrological responses to transitions in land use/cover and climate impacts within Lake Chilwa Basin in Malawi, using the soil and water assessment tools (SWAT). Results show that deforestation and cropland expansion largely characterized the basin, particularly in the 2000s decade. SWAT model proved highly effective in analyzing impacts of environmental changes, with indicators such as Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (Ens), Per cent bias (PBIAS) and ratio of root mean square error to measured standard deviation (RSR) presenting satisfactory values of; 0.88, 0.86; − 11.6%, − 19.8% and 0.34, 0.37 after calibration and validation, respectively. Comparison of exceedance probability between periods provided evidence of increasing runoff of up to 11% and subsequent declining baseflows linked to deforestation; irrespective of climate influence which portrayed a decrease–increase–decrease decadal impact on streamflow. The study further shows that forest vegetation tended to escalate evapotranspiration (ET), although the forest role of reducing runoff and enhancing groundwater recharge outweighed the ET effect. Since most watersheds in the basin remain significantly deforested, the threat of increased runoff leading to flooding and declining dry-seasonal river flows is certain.
... Projections by [21,22] and impact assessments by [3,6,23] indicate that sub-Saharan Africa could be subjected to an onslaught of bad harvests (harvest failures). Harvest failure, may be caused by extreme climate events such as droughts or floods [24], human health problems [19], and/or pests and diseases [19,25,26] (. Harvest failure undermine livelihoods and destabilize food prices [24,27], could result in income and consumption losses, and in most rural contexts, induce the depletion of productive assets to smooth consumption [28][29][30]. ...
... Most of the studies have analyzed farmers' adaptation strategies to climate and weather shocks and their determinants [35][36][37][38]. The few studies that assessed how farmers cope with harvest failures and other environmental stressors [29,39,40] documented only the strategies farmers used without analyzing the determinants of the choice and intensity of the coping strategies (except for [28] in Ethiopia, [30] in Kenya, [25] in Malawi, and [32] in Ghana). Notable among the exceptions is a recent study by [32] which analyzed both the coping and adaptation strategies women farmers use to respond to extreme climate events, and the factors that influenced them to use those strategies. ...
... Farmers experience of harvest failure has been attributed in literature mostly to climatic shocks such as droughts or floods [24], pest and diseases [19,25,26], and to human health problems [19], the latter of which has implications for labour supply. When exposed to the risk of harvest failure, farmers adopt several coping strategies to smooth income, consumption or both. ...
Farmers coping strategies against harvest failures have implication for future adaptation to such shocks. Previous studies on farmers’ vulnerability and response to shocks have emphasized on adaptation, at the expense of their coping to such shocks. Using a survey data from 299 farm households in northern Ghana, this study has analyzed farmers’ coping strategies against harvest failure, and the drivers of the choice and intensity of the coping strategies. The empirical results show that most of the households used liquidation of productive assets, reduction in consumption, borrowing from family and friends, diversification of livelihoods, and migration to cities for off-farm jobs as coping measures in response to harvest failure. The empirical results from a multivariate probit model indicate that the choice of coping strategies is influenced by farmers’ access to radio, net value of livestock produced per man-equivalent (ME), experience of yield loss in the previous year, farmers’ perception about the fertility status of their crop fields, access to credit, distance to market, farm-to-farmer extension, location of the respondent, cropland per ME, and access to off-farm income. Empirical results from a zero-truncated negative binomial regression model also indicate that the number of coping strategies adopted increases with the value of farm implements, access to radio, farmer-to-farmer extension and being located in the regional capital. It however decreases with the age of the household head, number of family members abroad, a positive perception about the fertility status of crop fields, access to government extension services, distance to market, and access to off-farm income. Limited access to credit, radio, and markets renders farmers more vulnerable and pushes them to adopt more costly coping strategies. In addition, an increase in income earned from secondary livestock products decreases incentive for farmers to adopt liquidation of productive assets as coping strategy after a harvest failure. Policy makers and stakeholders could make smallholder farmers less vulnerable to harvest failure by enhancing their access to radio, credit, off-farm income and market, promotion of farmer-to-farmer extension, implementing measure to improve the fertility of crop fields in the study area, and enhancing farmers’ engagement in the production and selling of secondary livestock products
... The prioritised strategies mainly were classified as coping strategies since they have a short-term frame (Table 6). Coulibaly et al. (2015) also identified changing crop type/variety and diversifying crop production as coping strategies used by farmers in southern Malawi. Coping strategies help to mitigate the negative effects of climate change and variability for the short term (Alemayehu and Bewket, 2017), though longterm measures are required to adapt to long-term climate change impacts. ...
Smallholder farmers are highly vulnerable to climate change and require prioritised strategies to minimise the impacts. Challenges faced by smallholder farmers hinder the implementation of coping and adaptation strategies, limiting sustainable agriculture. This study prioritised climate change coping and adaptation strategies and developed a plan to promote implementation by smallholder farmers. Linear additive model of multicriteria decision analysis within CLIMACT Prio tool Excel Spreadsheet was used to prioritise 16 strategies, in consultation with 23 stakeholders. Stakeholders included smallholder farmers, academics, municipal and government officials. Sensitivity analysis was used to determine the effect of changing weights on final ranking of the strategies. Reducing production space to maximise irrigation had the highest score of 1 and rank of 1 while reducing sand mining had the lowest score of 0.82 and rank of 7. Adjusting fertilisers, food preservation, reducing sand mining along river banks, planting high-yielding crop varieties and reducing soil erosion had an equal score of 0.95 and rank of 2. Varying the weight of each criterion did not affect ranking of the strategies. The study found that most strategies had short implementation time frames and were classified as coping strategies. Identified benefits of the prioritised strategies support national, regional and global development goals. The study provided information required for decision support which is an integral part of climate services. It also promotes improvement of relevant stakeholders’ policies and programs to support smallholder farmers.
... The focus of this study is on the ex-post coping strategies. Common ex-post coping strategies involve the sale of livestock and other productive assets, borrowing, reducing food intake or resorting to consumption of inferior foods, dissaving, off-farm employment, extraction of non-timber forest products (NTFP) (Coulibaly et al., 2015;Heltberg et al., 2015;Pramova et al., 2012;Tongruksawattana and Wainaina, 2019). In response to shocks, households shift their labour to forests, which in most cases have products that are more resilient to weather shocks (Shackleton, 2014;Wunder, Angelsen, et al., 2014). ...
... Evidence shows that forest-neighbouring communities depend on NTFPs such as gathering wild fruits, hunting-bush meat, mushrooms, firewood and beekeeping and to a lesser extent timber (charcoal burning, and timber extraction) to diversify their livelihoods during climatic shocks (Coulibaly et al., 2015;Gebre et al., 2021). ...
Despite the potential for forest resources to act as a less costly shock-coping strategy for rural households, evidence of the nexus between access to forest resources and the nature of coping strategies employed by households remains scanty. Using panel data from Malawi, first, we explore how the type of shock (covariate or idiosyncratic) influences the choice of coping strategy adopted. Second, we determine whether access to forest resources reduces the likelihood and intensity of reliance on costly shock-coping strategies (consumption reduction, and sale of assets). The results show that households are more likely to adopt costly coping strategies when responding to covariate weather shocks. However, the reverse was found to be true in the wake of idiosyncratic shocks. Our findings show that the use of forest products helps poor households in cushioning against the effects of shocks. Forest products collection aids consumption smoothing while protecting asset depletion in the wake of covariate shocks. This makes the availability of forest resources a critical safety net. Within a sound access mechanism, sustainable use of forest resources can reduce the likelihood of vulnerable households falling into poverty traps.
... Although this area accounts for 39 % of the country's land area and is home to most of the country's farmers, food production is still far from meeting consumer demand, and the share of rice imports, especially from China and India, is increasing at an alarming rate (Koivogui et al., 2018). Frequent crop failures, mainly due to adverse climatic conditions, rainfall disruptions and failure to monitor and manage extreme weather conditions, worsen the socioeconomic conditions of rural households, particularly those with limited resources and capacities (Harvey et al., 2014;Coulibaly et al., 2015;Dube et al., 2018). ...
... Descriptive statistics were used on households' socio-demographic characteristics to generate frequency tables, mean and standard deviation for analysis purposes whereas the multivariate probit (MVP) model was used to identify explanatory factors which were likely to influence farmers' choices of coping strategies. The MVP model was preferred to account for independence between practices as farmers might adopt more than one coping strategy and these may be ex-ante coping strategies and expost coping strategies (Coulibaly et al., 2015). The ex-post coping strategies include borrowing money or food, casual labour, small-scale mining, small trade and business, selling household assets, purchasing food from the market and expecting help from relatives, while ex-ante coping strategies were only fishing and gathering wild food (Table 2). ...
... Hence, the results showed that owning assets has the potential to buffer climate stress. Contrary to our results, Coulibaly et al. (2015) found the asset as a not determinant factor in the adoption of farmers' coping strategies, demonstrating the site-specific context of coping strategies. Already the awareness of extreme weather events motivated farmers with a higher educational level to engage themselves in small-scale trade and business. ...
Extreme weather events pose a serious threat to subsistence farming and food security in Upper Guinea, where most farmers rely heavily on rain-fed agriculture. Following crop failures, farmers use what is available to them to try to maintain household food security. This paper investigated the coping strategies chosen by farmers in Upper Guinea and the motivating factors behind them. A multistage sampling method was used to select a purposive random sample of 1,500 farm households within nine selected livelihood zones (Bassando, Dion-Niandan Inter-River, Fié basin, Foutanian Piémont, Kolokalan High Valley, Middle Plateau, Solima's High Plateau, Soudanese Plateau and Woulada plateau) of Upper Guinea affected by extreme weather events. Approaches including household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews and field observations were used to collect data. The multivariate probit regression (MVP) model was used to identify factors influencing small-scale farmers' choice of coping strategies during periods of extreme weather events. Results from the MVP model showed that differences in the perception of risk factors and socioeconomic characteristics of farm households determined these choices. The main factors motivating farmers' choice of coping strategies were awareness of extreme weather events, gender, the experience of crop failures , and ownership of assets. Other factors such as age, farming experience, household size, and educational level, were also determinants of farmers' choice of coping strategies. Local institutional support to farmers that could drive widespread adoption of climate-smart agriculture could improve livelihood production and community resilience in this region.
... The occurrence of drought events also affects agricultural production. Coulibaly et al. (2015) estimated that 53.3% of crop failure in Malawi is due to climatic factors including droughts, floods and high temperatures, and yet agriculture contributes almost 28-30% of Malawi's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (GOM, 2019). Therefore, the combined direct effects of floods and droughts affect Malawi's economy by reducing the annual GDP by 1.7% (Pauw et al., 2011). ...
... All the models under RCP8.5 during 2071-2100 agree on this possibility. Since climate factors including droughts contribute to crop failure in Malawi by 53.3% (Coulibaly et al., 2015), the more severe and longer-lasting future droughts as projected in this study will impact the agricultural sector and affect food security and the economy of the country. ...
The study examined the potential future changes of drought characteristics in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin in Southeast Africa. This region strongly depends on water resources to generate electricity and food. Future projections (considering both moderate and high emission scenarios) of temperature and precipitation from an ensemble of 16 bias-corrected climate model combinations were blended with a scenario-neutral response surface approach to analyses changes in: (i) the meteorological conditions, (ii) the meteorological water balance, and (iii) selected drought characteristics such as drought intensity, drought months, and drought events, which were derived from the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index. Changes were analyzed for a near-term (2021–2050) and far-term period (2071–2100) with reference to 1976–2005. The effect of bias-correction (i.e., empirical quantile mapping) on the ability of the climate model ensemble to reproduce observed drought characteristics as compared to raw climate projections was also investigated. Results suggest that the bias-correction improves the climate models in terms of reproducing temperature and precipitation statistics but not drought characteristics. Still, despite the differences in the internal structures and uncertainties that exist among the climate models, they all agree on an increase of meteorological droughts in the future in terms of higher drought intensity and longer events. Drought intensity is projected to increase between +25 and +50% during 2021–2050 and between +131 and +388% during 2071–2100. This translates into +3 to +5, and +7 to +8 more drought months per year during both periods, respectively. With longer lasting drought events, the number of drought events decreases. Projected droughts based on the high emission scenario are 1.7 times more severe than droughts based on the moderate scenario. That means that droughts in this region will likely become more severe in the coming decades. Despite the inherent high uncertainties of climate projections, the results provide a basis in planning and (water-)managing activities for climate change adaptation measures in Malawi. This is of particular relevance for water management issues referring hydro power generation and food production, both for rain-fed and irrigated agriculture.
... The occurrence of drought events also affects agricultural production. Coulibaly et al. (2015) estimated that 53.3% of crop failure in Malawi is due to climatic factors including droughts, floods and high temperatures, and yet agriculture contributes almost 28-30% of Malawi's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (GOM, 2019). Therefore, the combined direct effects of floods and droughts affect Malawi's economy by reducing the annual GDP by 1.7% (Pauw et al., 2011). ...
... All the models under RCP8.5 during 2071-2100 agree on this possibility. Since climate factors including droughts contribute to crop failure in Malawi by 53.3% (Coulibaly et al., 2015), the more severe and longer-lasting future droughts as projected in this study will impact the agricultural sector and affect food security and the economy of the country. ...
The study examined the potential future changes of drought characteristics in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin in Southeast Africa. This region strongly depends on water resources to generate electricity and food. Future projections (considering both moderate and high emission scenarios) of temperature and precipitation from an ensemble of 16 bias-corrected climate model combinations were blended with a scenario-neutral response surface approach to analyses changes in: (i) the meteorological conditions, (ii) the meteorological water balance, and (iii) selected drought characteristics such as drought intensity, drought months, and drought events, which were derived from the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index. Changes were analyzed for a near-term (2021–2050) and far-term period (2071–2100) with reference to 1976–2005. The effect of bias-correction (i.e., empirical quantile mapping) on the ability of the climate model ensemble to reproduce observed drought characteristics as compared to raw climate projections was also investigated. Results suggest that the bias-correction improves the climate models in terms of reproducing temperature and precipitation statistics but not drought characteristics. Still, despite the differences in the internal structures and uncertainties that exist among the climate models, they all agree on an increase of meteorological droughts in the future in terms of higher drought intensity and longer events. Drought intensity is projected to increase between +25 and +50% during 2021–2050 and between +131 and +388% during 2071–2100. This translates into +3 to +5, and +7 to +8 more drought months per year during both periods, respectively. With longer lasting drought events, the number of drought events decreases. Projected droughts based on the high emission scenario are 1.7 times more severe than droughts based on the moderate scenario. That means that droughts in this region will likely become more severe in the coming decades. Despite the inherent high uncertainties of climate projections, the results provide a basis in planning and (water-)managing activities for climate change adaptation measures in Malawi. This is of particular relevance for water management issues referring hydro power generation and food production, both for rain-fed and irrigated agriculture.
... Such perceptions about the period required to realise gains from CSA technologies may explain the lack of and/or inadequate adoption of ex ante risk management strategies to cope with climate change. In relation to this, Coulibaly et al. (2015) found that farmers in Malawi largely adopted ex post strategies such as participating in seasonal labor markets and selling forest products rather than sustainable ones such as those promoted under CSA like farm irrigation, change of crop type/variety and crop diversification. Additionally, constraints related to economic factors such as land, labor and capital availability prevent the implementation of some CSA practices (Nhemachena et al., 2014;Pannell et al., 2014;Awotide et al., 2016). ...
