Farmers' responses to climate variability and change in southern Africa - is it coping or adaptation?

Abstract

Southern Africa has a history of climate variability, and thus is an ideal setting to analyse responses to past and current climate variability by farmers. This paper presents original qualitative research undertaken in five southern African countries (Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe) to determine farmers' responses and whether they can be classified as coping or adaptation. Farmers were both subsistence- and commercially oriented, operating on a variety of scales, from small-scale through to large-scale, and growing a wide variety of crops, from cereals to vegetables and cash crops. A wide range of strategies have been adopted in order to respond to climate variability and change. These strategies include crisis responses, modifying farming practices, modifying crop types and varieties, resource management and diversification. Coping typically refers to short-term strategies designed to maintain survival, but the long-term nature of many of the responses suggests that they do, in fact, constitute adaptations to current variability and change. However, determining whether or not the observed strategies are examples of coping or adaptation is dependent on the particular context in which they were observed, and also requires a consideration of the scale of interest. This has implications for how policies and programmes are designed to support adaptation in the future. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.