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Climate risks and adaptation strategies of farmers in East Africa and South Asia

Understanding major climate risks, adaptation strategies, and factors influencing the choice of those strategies is crucial to reduce farmers’ vulnerability. Employing comprehensive data from 2822 farm households in Ethiopia and Kenya (East Africa; EA) and 1902 farm households in Bangladesh, India,...

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Autores principales: Aryal, Jeetendra Prakash, Sapkota, Tek Bahadur, Rahut, Dil Bahadur, Marenya, Paswel, Stirling, Clare M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8131377/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34006938
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89391-1
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author Aryal, Jeetendra Prakash
Sapkota, Tek Bahadur
Rahut, Dil Bahadur
Marenya, Paswel
Stirling, Clare M.
author_facet Aryal, Jeetendra Prakash
Sapkota, Tek Bahadur
Rahut, Dil Bahadur
Marenya, Paswel
Stirling, Clare M.
author_sort Aryal, Jeetendra Prakash
collection PubMed
description Understanding major climate risks, adaptation strategies, and factors influencing the choice of those strategies is crucial to reduce farmers’ vulnerability. Employing comprehensive data from 2822 farm households in Ethiopia and Kenya (East Africa; EA) and 1902 farm households in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal (South Asia; SA), this study investigates the main climate risks that farmers faced and the adaptation strategies they used. Among others, excessive rainfall and heightened crop pest/disease incidence are commonly observed climate-induced risks in all study areas, while cyclones and salinity are unique to Bangladesh. Drought is prevalent in Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Nepal. Farmers in those countries responded with strategies that include change in farming practices, sustainable land management, reduce consumption, sell assets, use savings and borrowings, seek alternative employment and assistance from government or NGO. In general, farmers faced several multiple climate risks simultaneously and they responded with multiple adaptation strategies. Therefore, this study used a multivariate probit (MVP) approach to examine the factors influencing the adoption of adaptation strategies. Unlike other studies, we also tested and corrected for possible endogeneity in model estimation. All the countries mentioned have low adaptive capacity to address climate change, which is further weakened by inadequate governance and inefficient institutions. We observed significant differences in the choice of adaptation strategies between male-headed households (MHHs) and female-headed households (FHHs), as well as across countries. Generally, MHHs are more likely to seek additional employment and change agricultural practices, while FHHs and households headed by older persons tend to reduce consumption and rely on savings and borrowings. Institutional support for adaptation is much less in EA compared to SA. Training on alternative farming practices, enhancing non-farm employment options, better institutional support, and social security for older farmers are crucial for climate change adaptation in both regions.
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spelling pubmed-81313772021-05-19 Climate risks and adaptation strategies of farmers in East Africa and South Asia Aryal, Jeetendra Prakash Sapkota, Tek Bahadur Rahut, Dil Bahadur Marenya, Paswel Stirling, Clare M. Sci Rep Article Understanding major climate risks, adaptation strategies, and factors influencing the choice of those strategies is crucial to reduce farmers’ vulnerability. Employing comprehensive data from 2822 farm households in Ethiopia and Kenya (East Africa; EA) and 1902 farm households in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal (South Asia; SA), this study investigates the main climate risks that farmers faced and the adaptation strategies they used. Among others, excessive rainfall and heightened crop pest/disease incidence are commonly observed climate-induced risks in all study areas, while cyclones and salinity are unique to Bangladesh. Drought is prevalent in Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Nepal. Farmers in those countries responded with strategies that include change in farming practices, sustainable land management, reduce consumption, sell assets, use savings and borrowings, seek alternative employment and assistance from government or NGO. In general, farmers faced several multiple climate risks simultaneously and they responded with multiple adaptation strategies. Therefore, this study used a multivariate probit (MVP) approach to examine the factors influencing the adoption of adaptation strategies. Unlike other studies, we also tested and corrected for possible endogeneity in model estimation. All the countries mentioned have low adaptive capacity to address climate change, which is further weakened by inadequate governance and inefficient institutions. We observed significant differences in the choice of adaptation strategies between male-headed households (MHHs) and female-headed households (FHHs), as well as across countries. Generally, MHHs are more likely to seek additional employment and change agricultural practices, while FHHs and households headed by older persons tend to reduce consumption and rely on savings and borrowings. Institutional support for adaptation is much less in EA compared to SA. Training on alternative farming practices, enhancing non-farm employment options, better institutional support, and social security for older farmers are crucial for climate change adaptation in both regions. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-05-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8131377/ /pubmed/34006938 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89391-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Aryal, Jeetendra Prakash
Sapkota, Tek Bahadur
Rahut, Dil Bahadur
Marenya, Paswel
Stirling, Clare M.
Climate risks and adaptation strategies of farmers in East Africa and South Asia
title Climate risks and adaptation strategies of farmers in East Africa and South Asia
title_full Climate risks and adaptation strategies of farmers in East Africa and South Asia
title_fullStr Climate risks and adaptation strategies of farmers in East Africa and South Asia
title_full_unstemmed Climate risks and adaptation strategies of farmers in East Africa and South Asia
title_short Climate risks and adaptation strategies of farmers in East Africa and South Asia
title_sort climate risks and adaptation strategies of farmers in east africa and south asia
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8131377/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34006938
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89391-1
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