Assessing local community perceptions on climate change and variability and its effects on crop production in Western Oromia, Ethiopia

Understanding of local people’s perception on environmental conditions is crucial to designing and implementing appropriate adaptation strategies to climate change and variability. This study looked at communities’ perception of climate change impacts, barriers and effective adaptation strategies in Western Oromia. Survey data were collected from 204 respondents using both qualitative and quantitative approaches through random sampling technique. Descriptive statistics such as percentage and frequency were used in data analysis. The results of the study showed that the respondents perceived the occurrence of climate change in terms of increase in temperatures, decrease in rainfall and change in timing of rain, change in the onset of rains, and erratic rainfall pattern. Weather related problems such as low rainfall, drought, flood, heat, cold, and strong winds were mentioned to have led to increased farming problems such as soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, reduction in crop yields and high rate of disease occurrence. The impacts of climate change on crop production were considered to have been affected by the start of farming season, including: rainfall coming early or late, decrease in rainfall, increase in temperature and increase in farming problems, in particular, increase in soil erosion, loss of soil fertility and reduction in crop yields. Respondents perceived the main cause of climate change as due to human action through intensified agriculture, deforestation, increased use of fossil fuel and use of chemical fertilizer on farms. The adaptation measures identified were soil and water conservation, crop rotation, changing crop varieties, changing planting dates, diversification of crop types, growing drought tolerent varieties, building water harvesting schemes and use of irrigation.Soil and water conservation was the method commonly used by the farmers to respond to climate change variability. Barriers to climate change adaptation included: lack of information, shortage of labor, lack of capital, lack of access to water and inability to use irrigation. There is a need to take into account these community perceptions when designing climate change adaptation measures.