Vernacular explanations of rainfall variability in highland Ethiopia

Abstract

This chapter shows that most farmers, while acknowledging increased deviation from the expected normal in the onset, duration, and intensity of the growing wet seasons, do not think of this pattern as an outcome of meteorologically observable acts in global climate change and climate variability. It discusses the most important agricultural and religious responses through which Amhara farmers seek to mitigate the vagaries of erratic rains. Unlike agricultural responses that are attuned to landscape-level, empirically observable knowledge of distinct biophysical features, supra-household religious responses draw on a vernacular perception of rainfall as a divine gift to humans of an all-knowing and omnipresent Creator, Allah. An interesting feature of the vernacular explanation of rainfall variability is that it encourages farmers to be less fatalistic even though they seem to believe that the pattern in each season is up to God/Allah. Compared to the lowland village, farmers in the highland village do not have a large crop repertoire to choose from