Working Paper

Farmers’ Perception and Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change and Variability in the Upper Catchment of Blue Nile, Ethiopia

“The study examined the perception of farmers towards climate change; assessed local impacts of climate change on the agriculture sector; identified local innovations for climate change adaptation; and assessed the barriers and determinants of climate change adaptation options at the farm level. The study was conducted in three dominant agro-ecological zones,
Highland, Midland, and Lowland, of the upper catchment of Blue Nile based on farm-level data collected from 384 households for 2010/2011 cropping season. According to the survey results, the majority of the respondents, up to 85% were of the view that there has been a
rise in temperature. Approximately 61% of the respondents observed a decrease in rainfall volume, whilst about 90% perceived a change in the timing of rains. The perception of most farmers’ on temperature rise was in harmony with the trend analysis of temperature records.
However, there was a clear contradiction between the perception of majority of farmers’ on rainfall volume and the trend analysis of the rainfall records. Most of the farmers’ who perceived changes in climate employed local adaptation options in response to climate signals.”