Abstract:
Effects of climate change vary across regions, farming systems, households and
individuals. Agro-pastoralists, through experimentation over time, have developed
different strategies to cope with climate change and variability. In Ilemela and Magu
Districts, little has been done in evaluating coping strategies developed to address the
impacts of climate variability to agro-pastoralism and the socio-economic factors
influencing their coping capacity. This study therefore highlighted on the coping
strategies that agro-pastoralists in the two districts are employing to counteract the effects
of climate change and variability. Data were collected through focus group discussions
and in-depth interviews using questionnaire which was administered to 120 households in
selected villages. Analysis was through descriptive statistics, multinomial logistic
regression model, complemented with the time-series analysis of annual and seasonal
climatic values. The results of analysis indicated that households were aware of climate
variability and mentioned increase in unpredictability of rainfall patterns, decline in
natural forest cover, disappearance of some species, increase in temperature and
incidences of droughts leading to drying-up of some rivers and springs as indicators of
climate change. The available coping strategies included migration (87%), diversification
of activities (78%), splitting herds (55%), making boreholes (50%) and using tap water
(65%). The socio-economic factors that significantly influenced the adaptive capacity
(p<0.05) were herd size, number of years lived and age of the head of household as they
had a significance level of 0.032, 0.047 and 0.011, respectively. The study recommends a
need for appropriate interventions ensuring management of rangeland and water
availability so as to improve livestock productivity. Socio-economic factors spotted can
be a determining factor in upgrading and introduction of more advanced technologies and strategies.
