Farmers resilience to climate variability and perceptions towards adoption of climate smart agricultural practices: evidence from Kersa district, East Hararghe of Ethiopia

The aim of the study was to investigate farmers’ resilience to climate variability and their perception towards adoption of climate smart agricultural practices in Eastern Ethiopia. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from primary and secondary sources. Quantitative data was collected using an interview schedule from 204 randomly selected households. Data were analyzed using descriptive, inferential statistics, multivariate probit model and Resilience capacity index. The results revealed that the likelihood to adopt climate smart agricultural practices such as intercropping, soil and water conservation and drought resistance crop varieties were 67.7, 70.6 and 53.3% respectively while the likelihood to adopt CSA practices such as water harvesting and crop rotation were 44.3 and 43.59% respectively. Furthermore, the model results revealed that sex of the household head, farm distance, extension contact, access to credit, membership to social organization, market distance, and access to weather information were significantly associated with adoption of climate smart agriculture practices. The resilience capacity index ranged from − 26.7 to 28.12. This implies household with negative resilience capacity index value have low level of resilience while households with positive resilience capacity index values have high level of resilience. The results indicates that provision of institutional services such as extension, market, credit, social network and provision of weather information need to be made for increasing the adoption of climate smart agricultural practices. Differentiated interventions are required for improving the resilience capacity of the farmers due differences in resilience capacity of the farmers.