Impacts of Climate Variability on Vegetable Production of Urban Farmers

Abstract

This study was aimed to examine impacts of climate variability on vegetable production and farmer‟s prioritization of climate smart agriculture technologies and identification of vulnerable farmers. The study was conducted on vegetable farmers along the Little Akaki River in Addis Ababa. Field data were collected through semi structured survey questioner from randomly selected 156 vegetable farmers. Twenty years (1996-2016) climate data were analyzed with qualitative and quantitative descriptive statistics methods. The result of monthly and annual precipitation variability indicates a coefficient of variation (CV) ranging from 23% -73% and 49% - 98% respectively. Seasonally CV ranges between 34% - 99%, 50% - 97% and 20% - 84% in Belg and Bega and Kiremt respectively. The result of climate data and respondents‟ perception on local climate variability indicates an increasing trend in temperature and precipitation variability. Urban vegetable farmers perceived that increase in frequency of flood and rainfall (44.9%), drought frequency (13.5%) and increase in temperature (89.7%) and decrease in the trend of vegetable productivity (86.5%) as the major impact of climate variability. However, the changing vegetable variety (31.4%), early planting (26.9%), mixed farming (26.6%), late planting (5.1%), using agro chemicals (4.5%), and agro forestry (1.9%) were the major on-farm climates smart agriculture technologies identified to adaptation. Shift occupation (37.8%), non-adaptation (36.5%) and non-farm activates (24.4%) were employed as off farm adaptation option. In addition, result from vulnerability analysis indicates that the absence of direct access to markets, inadequate access to weather information, land fragmentation and tenure complications were the major vulnerable determinants. It is recommended that there should be market for selling vegetable products, accesses to weather information, and integration of indigenous and modern knowledge on climate variability adaptation should be addressed