Impact of climate change adaptation strategies on food security of groundnut farming households in Yirol East County South Sudan

Abstract

With projected temperatures rising higher than the rest of the world – and an increase in the occurrence of droughts, floods, and other natural disasters – the people, economy, and ecosystems of Africa are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. South Sudan is experiencing substantially warmer and drier weather, and the combination of these effects leads to increasing evapotranspiration and more droughts. The main purpose of this study was to identify adaptation strategies used by groundnut farmers in Yirol East County (District), assess the factors influencing the adoption of these adaptation strategies as well as evaluate the impact of adopted climate adaptation strategies on the household food security of groundnut farmers. Four payams (sub-districts) in Yirol East County namely; Adior, Malek, Pagarau, and Yali were targeted for data collection. A sample of 481 respondents was drawn from the total population of 113,052 farming households in the study area. Primary data were collected using structured and semi-structured questionnaires in kobo collect software and focused group discussion (FGD). In this study, objective one used descriptive statistics while objectives two, three, four, and five used inferential analysis from the sampled data. Objective six was analysed qualitatively. Findings of the descriptive statistics show that most of the participants were female as shown by 64.4% while the rest were male as shown by 35.6%. Most of the participants were in the age category ranging from 31 – 45 years as shown by 52.8% out of which 92.9% of the participants were married. However, the majority of groundnut farmers 82.7% had not attained basic education levels. Most of the respondents have been residence in a community for more than 11 years as shown by 60.1%, of which 55.9% with farming experience in years was more than 11 years. The findings further show that there is a positive and significant relationship between good agricultural practices and distance to market (r=0.443; p=0.000), knowledge of climate change adaptation strategy (r=0.286; p=0.000) as well as access to extension services (r=0.257; p=0.000), membership to farmers’ group (r=0.294; p=0.000) as well as perceived change in droughts and floods (r=0.146; p=0.001). Other factors such as membership of the farmers’ group (r=0.136; p=0.003) and perceived change in droughts and floods (r=0.186; p=0.000) have a positive and significant relationship with farm technology adopted by groundnut farmers in Yirol East County. Nevertheless, the study established that distance to market (r=0.462; p=0.000), knowledge of climate change adaptation strategy (r=0.359; p=0.000), access to extension services (r=0.250; p=0.000) and membership to farmers’ group (r=0.432; p=0.000) have a positive and significant relationship with off-farm activities such as business, casual labour and formal employment. The study also revealed that gender of the farmer (r=0.100; p=0.028), experience in farming (r=0.098; p=0.032), length of residence in the community (r=1.000; p=0.000), access to climate and weather information (r=0.117; p=0.01) and perceived change in prevalence of diseases and pests (0.275; p=0.000) have a positive and significant relationship with livestock farming as climate change adaptation strategy. The research further shows that the decision to adopt climate change adaptation strategies (CCAS) is determined by farmers’ age, sex, farming experience, farm size, farmers’ income, and knowledge level. In addition, the findings showed that climate change adaptation strategies (CCAS) adoption has a significant relationship with food secure status and food insecure status of groundnut farming households. The research has found that four major socio-economic sectors (SES) which include livestock, water, agriculture, environment/forestry, and health care services in the study area are highly sensitive to the impacts of climate change due to high risks of extreme weather conditions. In light of the findings of this study, a functional climate change adaptation framework was developed for groundnut farming households in Yirol East County but, could as well be used as a reference tool by the government of the Republic of South Sudan, United Nations (UN) agencies, national and international non-governmental organizations (NNGOs/INGOs) in the country.