Thirteenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Scientific evidence suggests that climatic conditions are changing with severe impacts projected for agricultural and food production systems. The increased variability of climate parameters such as rainfall and temperature has continued to raise concerns among crop producers particularly the smallholder farmers. As majority of smallholder farmers in South Africa largely depend on rain-fed agriculture, thus making them most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This study assessed the perception of smallholder farmers on climate change and their adaptation responses. A Purposive sampling technique was used to select a total of seventy three smallholder farmers from five selected municipality located in the Olifants catchment, South Africa. A combination of descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyse the data obtained in this study. Findings revealed that smallholder farmers have an in-depth knowledge of the climate shift happening in the area: with increasing temperature and declining rainfall as the most noticeable change observed. The most significant adaptation strategies adopted by smallholder farmers included adjusting planting dates, planting of drought tolerant crops and the use of improved seed varieties. The main barriers to the adoption of adaptation measures were access to irrigation facility, access to market, lack of storage facility, access to loan and farm inputs. The implication of this study is to provide information to policy makers on the current adaptive responses adopted by farmers and ways in which adaptation responses to climate change impact can be improved in order to ensure food security.