Managing Climate Risks Using Seasonal Climate Forecast Information in Vhembe District in Limpopo Province, South Africa

The majority of small – scale farmers in the Vhembe district have been experiencing extreme climatic risk, high climate variability and change for a very long time. The majority of these small –scale farmers are vulnerable to all types of climate risk due to their low adaptive capacity, lack of access to technology as a result of level of education, lack of financial resources and also among other things low level of resilience and high level of poverty amongst these farmers. However, the majority of these small – scale farmers in the Vhembe district use different adaptive strategies as a way of preserving assets for future livelihoods including- (a) Drought resistant varieties, (b) Crop diversification, (c) Plant crops that require less water, (d) Some of these small – scale farmers use local climate indicators to monitor climate risk, (e) Adjust fertilizer input, (f) Use rainwater harvesting techniques. Different institutions in the country including the South African Weather Services, and the Agricultural Research Council, and the Limpopo Provincial Department of Agriculture, issue and disseminate the seasonal forecasts information to different districts including the Vhembe. Most of the time, the information has been disseminated to end-users in simple ways, but the need to find more out more about end users’ needs is still required.