On-farm adaptation strategies to climate change: the case of smallholder farmers in the Northern Development Authority Zone of Ghana

This paper examines the barriers and adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers in the Northern Development Authority (NDR) zone of Ghana to climate change. The study also investigates the effect of the socio-economic and institutional factors on the on-farm adaptation strategies to climate change of smallholder farmers. The study employs descriptive statistics to analyse the barriers and adaptation techniques of a sample of 125 smallholder farmers in the NDR zone of Ghana. The binary logit model was employed to analyse the effect of the socio-economic and institutional factors on the on-farm adaptation strategies to climate change. The results show that households face considerable availability and liquidity constraints in adapting to climate change. The lack of capacity building program is the major availability constraint, while the lack of funds to purchase fertiliser is the major liquidity constraint. Most farmers do not apply any adaptation technique, while the few farmers who adapt to the changing climate frequently use soil and water conservation and grow different crop varieties and diversification of the crop produced. A number of socio-economic characteristics and institutional factors (particularly governmental extension services), and the longitudinal temperature and rainfall significantly affect the on-farm adaptation strategies of households. Though smallholder farmers in the NDR zone of Ghana apply a multiplicity of on-farm and non-farm adaptation strategies, this research is limited to on-farm adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers. The study recommends that policies aimed at helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change should greatly emphasise on capacity-building programs. Also, investment in extension services to support rural farm households is highly recommended due to the great impact it has on adapting to climate change. This paper contributes to the empirical literature by first using the farm-level survey data from wider geographical areas in the NDR zone of Ghana to analyse the climate change adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers. This paper also focusses on only the on-farm climate change adaptation strategies of households in the NDR zone of Ghana.