Farmers’ Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change in Africa: Small-Scale Farmers in Cameroon

Abstract

Small-scale farmers’ limited adaptive capacity confronted with the adversities of climate change is a major call for concern considering that small-scale farms feed over half of the world’s population. In this light, small-scale farmers’ adaptive choices and adaptive capacity to climate change were assessed. Data were collected from primary and secondary sources using a mixed research approach. Findings revealed that extreme weather events have been recurrent and small-scale farmers perceived access to land, household income, and the planting of trees/shrubs on farms (agroforestry) as the main factors influencing their capacity to adapt to climate change. Agroforestry and monoculture practices were the main adaptive choices of small-scale farmers confronted with climate change. T-test and chi-square test statistics revealed a strong non-cause-effect relationship (p < 0.001) between small-scale farmers’ capacity to adapt to climate change and different socio-economic, institutional, and environmental variables. Parameter estimates of the binomial logistic regression model indicated the existence of a strong direct cause-effect relationship (p < 0.05) between small-scale farmers’ capacity to adapt to climate change and access to credit, household income, number of farms, access to information, and access to land, indicating that these variables enhance small-scale farmers’ capacity to adapt to climate change. It is recommended that policy makers examine the adaptive choices and determinants of farmers’ adaptive capacity unearthed in this chapter when formulating policies geared towards enhancing small-scale farmers’ capacity to adapt to climate change.