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Evaluation of heat stress impacts and adaptations: perspectives from smallholder rural farmers in Bawku East of Northern Ghana

Across the tropical developing countries, smallholder farmers are confronted with various climate related risks that hinge on agricultural activities. Climate change is predicted to impact smallholder farmers and their livelihood, especially within and beyond this century. Several studies have exami...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Frimpong, Kwasi, Odonkor, Stephen T., Kuranchie, Francis A., Nunfam, Victor Fannam
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7177031/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32337378
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03679
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author Frimpong, Kwasi
Odonkor, Stephen T.
Kuranchie, Francis A.
Nunfam, Victor Fannam
author_facet Frimpong, Kwasi
Odonkor, Stephen T.
Kuranchie, Francis A.
Nunfam, Victor Fannam
author_sort Frimpong, Kwasi
collection PubMed
description Across the tropical developing countries, smallholder farmers are confronted with various climate related risks that hinge on agricultural activities. Climate change is predicted to impact smallholder farmers and their livelihood, especially within and beyond this century. Several studies have examined the impact of drought and rainfall on smallholder farmers as climate change impact assessment. However, there is limited information on impacts and coping strategies of poor farmers to heat exposure at household and farm level in tropical developing countries. As global temperature is predicted to increase with robust impacts on farmers in African region due to poverty and low adaptive capacity, this study evaluates how farmers in Bawku East of Northern Ghana experience the impacts of heat stress and how they cope with it both at the household level and on the field of cultivation. Using household survey and focus group discussion, the authors elicited impacts and responses of heat exposure from 308 resident farmers in three selected farming communities in Bawku East to gauge their vulnerability to heat exposure. Even though farmers have various impacts and coping strategies to heat exposure, these are ineffective to prevent them from heat related morbidity and mortality at both household and farm level. The study recommends the need for government led intervention to assist farmers in their effort to cope with heat stress as global temperatures will exacerbate heat stress impacts on small holder farmers especially in African region.
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spelling pubmed-71770312020-04-24 Evaluation of heat stress impacts and adaptations: perspectives from smallholder rural farmers in Bawku East of Northern Ghana Frimpong, Kwasi Odonkor, Stephen T. Kuranchie, Francis A. Nunfam, Victor Fannam Heliyon Article Across the tropical developing countries, smallholder farmers are confronted with various climate related risks that hinge on agricultural activities. Climate change is predicted to impact smallholder farmers and their livelihood, especially within and beyond this century. Several studies have examined the impact of drought and rainfall on smallholder farmers as climate change impact assessment. However, there is limited information on impacts and coping strategies of poor farmers to heat exposure at household and farm level in tropical developing countries. As global temperature is predicted to increase with robust impacts on farmers in African region due to poverty and low adaptive capacity, this study evaluates how farmers in Bawku East of Northern Ghana experience the impacts of heat stress and how they cope with it both at the household level and on the field of cultivation. Using household survey and focus group discussion, the authors elicited impacts and responses of heat exposure from 308 resident farmers in three selected farming communities in Bawku East to gauge their vulnerability to heat exposure. Even though farmers have various impacts and coping strategies to heat exposure, these are ineffective to prevent them from heat related morbidity and mortality at both household and farm level. The study recommends the need for government led intervention to assist farmers in their effort to cope with heat stress as global temperatures will exacerbate heat stress impacts on small holder farmers especially in African region. Elsevier 2020-04-21 /pmc/articles/PMC7177031/ /pubmed/32337378 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03679 Text en © 2020 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Frimpong, Kwasi
Odonkor, Stephen T.
Kuranchie, Francis A.
Nunfam, Victor Fannam
Evaluation of heat stress impacts and adaptations: perspectives from smallholder rural farmers in Bawku East of Northern Ghana
title Evaluation of heat stress impacts and adaptations: perspectives from smallholder rural farmers in Bawku East of Northern Ghana
title_full Evaluation of heat stress impacts and adaptations: perspectives from smallholder rural farmers in Bawku East of Northern Ghana
title_fullStr Evaluation of heat stress impacts and adaptations: perspectives from smallholder rural farmers in Bawku East of Northern Ghana
title_full_unstemmed Evaluation of heat stress impacts and adaptations: perspectives from smallholder rural farmers in Bawku East of Northern Ghana
title_short Evaluation of heat stress impacts and adaptations: perspectives from smallholder rural farmers in Bawku East of Northern Ghana
title_sort evaluation of heat stress impacts and adaptations: perspectives from smallholder rural farmers in bawku east of northern ghana
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7177031/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32337378
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03679
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