Determinants of the Choice of Adaptation Strategies to Climate Variability and Extremes among Pastoralist and Agro-Pastoralist Households in Yabello and Arero Districts, Southeast Ethiopia

Climate variability and extremes adversely affect the livestock sector by reducing pasture availability, polluting and depleting water resources, aggravating livestock diseases, and distorting the production systems. The cumulative effect of climate variability undermines the adaptive capacity of pastoralists and worsens food insecurity. This study assesses the impact of climate variability and the determinants of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists adaptation strategies in Yabello and Arero Districts, southern Ethiopia. Accordingly, data were collected from randomly selected 296 sample households using a questionnaire survey. Data were also gathered from a purposively selected key informants and focus group discussion participants. Areal gridded dikadal rainfall and temperature data were collected from the National Meteorological Institute. Descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression data analysis methods were used. The results show that all seasons were significantly warming, while rainfall declined at various degrees and the distribution was highly variable across the study period. The ever rising minimum and maximum temperature and the erratic nature of rainfall has undermined the availability of pasture and water resources, especially during drought years resulting in the prevalence of livestock diseases. The age of the household head, poor access to information, lack of credit and saving services, limited knowledge, and erratic rainfall were found to be the determinant factors in the choice of adaptation options to climate variability and extremes. The study also found that lack of appropriate intervention and support mechanisms by government and non-government actors as well as the reluctance of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists to accept the stakeholders’ advice were the barriers to climate variability adaptation. Thus, it is clear that pastoralists’ and agro-pastoralists’ livelihood is at risk for climate variability and extremes and hence, requires context specific adaptive capacity building intervention that ranges from awareness creation to strengthening basic infrastructures and rangeland management.