Determinants of farmers’ preference for adaptation strategies to climate change: evidence from north shoa zone of Amhara region Ethiopia

Studies on climate change adaptation recognize the importance of agro-ecology based research for designing context-specific policies and programs to climate change. This study, therefore, applied a case-study approach to examine farmers’ preference for climate change adaptation strategies and the factors deriving their preference. Thus, households’ preference for five types of climate change adaptation strategies (multiple cropping, livestock, soil conservation, irrigation, and changing planting dates) is identified and the determinants of the preference are analyzed using Rank-Ordered Logit Model. The result shows that multiple cropping is the most preferred and frequently applied adaptation strategy to climate change, while livestock production is the least. The result also indicates that gender, age, farming experience and education level of the household head, household size, and farm and nonfarm income; farm size and farm distance to homestead; agricultural extension services and access to climate forecast information; farmers’ perceptions on long-term average temperature and rainfall affect farmers’ preference for the climate change adaptation strategies. Thus, policies and programs with the aim of reducing climate change impacts through adaptation need to consider important roles of these factors. The main barriers to climate change adaptation are lack of information or knowledge, shortage of money, shortage of land, and unsuitability of land and poor potential for irrigation. Although adaptation is one of the policy options for reducing the negative impacts of climate change, it is challenged by these constraints. Therefore, promoting investments and strengthening efforts to address these constraints is suggested to enhance farmers’ adaptation capacity and thus adaptation to climate change.