IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ibn/jasjnl/v7y2015i7p93.html

Rural Farming Households Vulnerability to Climate Variability in Malawi: A Case of Chitekwere Area Development Programme (ADP) in Lilongwe District

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine Ng'ambi
  • Joseph Dzanja
  • Weston Mwase

Abstract

Malawi has been experiencing a variety of climatic hazards which include intense rainfall, floods, seasonal droughts, multi-year droughts, dry spells, cold spells, strong winds, thunderstorms, landslides, hailstorms, mudslides and heat waves, among many others. These hazards have been undermining the capacity of small holder households to produce various agricultural commodities. This paper therefore details the results of a study conducted in Malawi aimed at establishing the determinants of household vulnerability in rural farming households of Chitekwere Extension Planning Area (EPA) in Lilongwe District. A household survey of 217 randomly selected households was undertaken to collect primary data. Households were classified into different levels of vulnerability using a Household Vulnerability Index (HVI). In addition, a Logit model coupled with one sample t-tests, Principal Component Analysis and Sensitivity Analysis were used to characterise rural household vulnerability. The analysis yielded two vulnerability categories of low and moderate levels. The Household vulnerability cut-offs were as follows- 65-100 high vulnerability, 41-64.48 moderate vulnerability and 0-40 low vulnerability. The results showed that 7.4% (n = 16) of the households were least vulnerable and 92.6% (n = 201) were moderately vulnerable. The estimates of the logit model revealed that Income Generating Activities (IGA), household size, landholding size, education and access to external support were the most important factors determining household vulnerability. These factors would influence households to graduate from moderate to low vulnerability or vice versa. Principal component Analysis results showed that the proportion of maize production had the highest weight in assessing sensitivity of households due to decline of maize yield. The results have implications for the development of appropriate policies that will mitigate the negative effects of climate change in Malawi.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine Ng'ambi & Joseph Dzanja & Weston Mwase, 2015. "Rural Farming Households Vulnerability to Climate Variability in Malawi: A Case of Chitekwere Area Development Programme (ADP) in Lilongwe District," Journal of Agricultural Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 7(7), pages 1-93, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ibn:jasjnl:v:7:y:2015:i:7:p:93
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/download/45055/26852
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/view/45055
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deressa, Temesgen Tadesse, 2007. "Measuring the economic impact of climate change on Ethiopian agriculture : Ricardian approach," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4342, The World Bank.
    2. Neil Adger, W., 1999. "Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in Coastal Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 249-269, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Taye, Bedaso, 2010. "Analysis of Household Vulnerability to Climate Change and Adaptation Options: Evidence From Adama and Lume Woredas, Ethiopia," 2010 Thirteenth Annual Conference, September 23-25, 2010, Addis Ababa 304697, Agricultural Economics Society of Ethiopia.
    2. Deressa, Temesgen T. & Hassan, Rashid M. & Ringler, Claudia, 2009. "Assessing household vulnerability to climate change: The case of farmers in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia," IFPRI discussion papers 935, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Erin Bunting & Jessica Steele & Eric Keys & Shylock Muyengwa & Brian Child & Jane Southworth, 2013. "Local Perception of Risk to Livelihoods in the Semi-Arid Landscape of Southern Africa," Land, MDPI, vol. 2(2), pages 1-27, May.
    4. Busby, Joshua & Smith, Todd G. & Krishnan, Nisha & Wight, Charles & Vallejo-Gutierrez, Santiago, 2018. "In harm's way: Climate security vulnerability in Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 88-118.
    5. Melese Mulu Baylie & Csaba Fogarassy, 2022. "Decision Analysis of the Adaptation of Households to Extreme Floods Using an Extended Protection Motivation Framework—A Case Study from Ethiopia," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-20, October.
    6. Jones, Lindsey & d'Errico, Marco, 2019. "Whose resilience matters? Like-for-like comparison of objective and subjective evaluations of resilience," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Mook Bangalore & Andrew Smith & Ted Veldkamp, 2019. "Exposure to Floods, Climate Change, and Poverty in Vietnam," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 79-99, April.
    8. Thomas Bolognesi, 2015. "The water vulnerability of metro and megacities: An investigation of structural determinants," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(2), pages 123-133, May.
    9. Arun S. Malik & Stephen C. Smith, 2012. "Adaptation To Climate Change In Low-Income Countries: Lessons From Current Research And Needs From Future Research," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(02), pages 1-22.
    10. Yonas Alem & Mintewab Bezabih & Menale Kassie & Precious Zikhali, 2010. "Does fertilizer use respond to rainfall variability? Panel data evidence from Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(2), pages 165-175, March.
    11. Brian C. Thiede & Abbie Robinson & Clark Gray, 2024. "Climatic Variability and Internal Migration in Asia: Evidence from Big Microdata," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 50(2), pages 513-540, June.
    12. Jirawat Panpeng & Mokbul Morshed Ahmad, 2017. "Vulnerability of Fishing Communities from Sea-Level Change: A Study of Laemsing District in Chanthaburi Province, Thailand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-19, August.
    13. Dillon, Andrew & Friedman, Jed & Serneels, Pieter, 2014. "Health Information, Treatment, and Worker Productivity: Experimental Evidence from Malaria Testing and Treatment among Nigerian Sugarcane Cutters," IZA Discussion Papers 8074, IZA Network @ LISER.
    14. Hans-Martin Füssel, 2010. "Review and Quantitative Analysis of Indices of Climate Change Exposure, Adaptive Capacity, Sensitivity, and Impacts," World Bank Publications - Reports 9193, The World Bank Group.
    15. Richard S.J. Tol & Samuel Fankhauser & Richard G. Richels & Joel B. Smith, 2000. "How Much Damage Will Climate Change Do? Recent Estimates," Working Papers FNU-2, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Sep 2000.
    16. H.M. Tuihedur Rahman & Gordon M. Hickey, 2020. "An Analytical Framework for Assessing Context-Specific Rural Livelihood Vulnerability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-26, July.
    17. Barnett, Jon, 2001. "Adapting to Climate Change in Pacific Island Countries: The Problem of Uncertainty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 977-993, June.
    18. Jia Xu & Makoto Takahashi, 2021. "Progressing vulnerability of the immigrants in an urbanizing village in coastal China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 8012-8026, May.
    19. Chiarity Zetem Chiambah & Cordelia G. Kometa, 2022. "Rainfall Variability and Food Crop Vulnerability in Ndu Sub-Division, North West Region of Cameroon," Journal of Geography and Geology, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(3), pages 1-39, September.
    20. Sanjit Maiti & Sujeet Jha & Sanchita Garai & Arindam Nag & R. Chakravarty & K. Kadian & B. Chandel & K. Datta & R. Upadhyay, 2015. "Assessment of social vulnerability to climate change in the eastern coast of India," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 287-306, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ibn:jasjnl:v:7:y:2015:i:7:p:93. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Canadian Center of Science and Education (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.