An analysis of climate change adaption strategies: a case study of smallholder farmers in Limpopo province, South Africa

Abstract

Climate change is a worldwide problem as it affects agriculture which is the livelihood of the poor. The study used the Protection Motivation Theory to understand how smallholder farmers protect themselves from climate change impacts and what motivates them to do so. The purpose of this exploratory sequential mixed method design was, firstly, to explore and understand climate change through the insights and experiences of smallholder farmers and government officials in Limpopo Province. Secondly, to uncover and assess smallholder farmers' adaptation techniques to varied climatic circumstances. This was a case study that used a mixed approach following two phases. To collect data, 62 smallholder farmers under Ba-Phalaborwa Local Municipality and 12 key informants from Limpopo Department of Agriculture and Rural Development were chosen using purposive and random selection. Questionnaires, a focus group guide, key informant interviews, and field observations were used to collect data from both qualitative and quantitative phases. The mixed data analysis used joint data displays, which exhibited findings from qualitative and quantitative data together for an overall research interpretation. Extreme climatic events; high socioeconomic losses; a lack of resources; limited adaptation techniques; and agricultural investment were the themes found in this study. These themes developed the questionnaires to collect quantitative data. Climate change has a detrimental impact on smallholder farmers owing to a lack of physical, human, institutional and financial resources. Smallholder farmers hardly survived climate shocks due to inadequate institutional support. These impediments limited smallholder farmers' capacity to adopt and apply several adaptation strategies. Despite that smallholder farmers adopted cost free strategies, such as manure, mulching, crop rotation and planting indigenous crops, to survive harsh climate impacts, strategy such as drilling borehole has been found to be maladaptive, possibly to cost government lots of money in the future due to a reduced groundwater level. Hence, there is need viii for decision makers to improve and strengthen climate adaptation policies. Moreover, the findings revealed that Limpopo Province experiences climatic events such as heavy rainfall, droughts, thunderstorms, floods and veld fires. Hence, educating farmers about climate change has been found to be a pre-requisite. Limited collaboration between government departments was found to be the reason for the lack of availability and accessibility to resources to farmers. Harsh climate conditions can be managed if stakeholders pool their resources for the benefit of farmers and to boost the economic growth of the country.