There are two contrary debates focused on whether pastoral lifestyles could serve as an adaptation strategy to climate change in the drylands regions of East Africa. The first contends with deep pessimism about the pastoral mode of life, viewing pastoralism an old living system by which pastoralists could not meet their livelihood requirements. Pastoralists live in drylands areas characterized by repeating droughts, land degradation, lack of marketing, governance and access to technology . And even these limited resource regions are being further stressed by human population growth. In the Greater Horn of Africa, pressure on the ecological base of rangelands threatened carrying capacity to support huge livestock herds that eventually left pastoralists in crisis . According to Sandford , introducing improved livestock management with permanent settlement should be prioritized and this can be credible if it is integrated with irrigation and mixed livestock-cereal production and with forage enhancement schemes. His argument emphasizes that settling pastoral communities into permanent locations leads to the provision of basic infrastructure including schools, health services, road accesses, and veterinary services. The second strand of literature strongly advocates the importance of the pastoral living style to maintain livelihoods through traditional systems . Pastoralists have a long history of involvement in various forms of adaptation methods based on their own indigenous knowledge . Research findings demonstrate that the pastoral system is an easy way to adapt to climatic effects, owing to its suitability to arid and semi-arid environments through strategies of establishing strong social capital, economic cooperation among community members and clan lineage networks, herd diversification and restocking methods. In such a context, pastoral life allows the community to keep their cultural systems and knowledge while responding to the negative effects of climate change. Instead of changing the prolonged indigenous mode of living into the proposed new style of life,horticulture trays more attention is needed to enhance mobility strategies in a way that supports adaptive capacity by introducing modern extension services and veterinary facilities. Clearly, there is a divergence of opinions about the sustainability of the pastoral way of life and its corresponding contribution towards climatic adaptation in the drylands regions of Africa.
This is complicated by the multifaceted nature of adaptation possibilities that are heavily dependent on a variety of factors such as market accessibility and institutions , resource availability , demand pressure of human and livestock populations for limited land size and availability of livelihood options apart from livestock earnings . Considering the existence of pastoral, semi-pastoral, agro-pastoral and mixed-farming communities in the region, it is difficult to clearly point out exactly how these two debates fit into policy actions without having sizeable evidence. This requires a thorough investigation about how multiple adaptation strategies influence the adaptive capacity of these communities. This study examines what and how major factors influence the adaptive capacity of rural communities in the Afar region of Ethiopia, including to what extent adaptation methods are applied and which adaptation methods contribute to household income. This is important because rural communities in the Afar region account for about 29% of the country’s total population and 16% per annum of total GDP 2008). While most of these communities meet their subsistence living via engaging in animal production, the natural resource base in the region is highly subject to overgrazing and deforestation, with an increasing number of human and livestock populations , which has accelerated . Such challenges combined with unpredictable rainfall and changing temperature leave villagers vulnerable to economic disasters. Therefore, understanding how locally practised adaptation strategies uphold the livelihoods of rural communities is paramount to improve their lives. It is unclear which adaptation strategies lift livelihoods across the community groups. The large body of previous literature is focused on climate modelling techniques for identifying future threats of climate change and outlining adaptation approaches. Options for adaptation include diversifying income, building formal and informal institutions, adjustments in livestock holdings and species, labour mobility and engagement in small irrigation schemes . However, little empirical knowledge is available to help understand the effects of alternative adaptation strategies on household incomes. Hence, this study has three objectives: to determine how pastoral, semi-pastoral, agro-pastoral and mixed-farming communities perceive the effects of climatic change; to examine how they adapt to these changes and to estimate how that affects their income. Results are based on a survey of over 300 pastoral, semi-pastoral, agro-pastoral and mixed-farming communities.The Aba’ala district was chosen for two reasons. First, the district is characterized by its dryness and the common phenomenon of drought occurrences for about five decades.
Due to its geographical remoteness from the Awash River and other perennial rivers, Aba’ala is one of the districts in northern Afar currently suffering from lack of water and access to grazing areas during drought periods. Second, the existence of indigenous experiences of adaptation methods practised by pastoral, semipastoral, agro-pastoral and mixed-farming communities in the district motivated this research, specifically to formulate a detailed analysis on relationships between various adaptation strategies and household income. The livelihood bases of the Afar communities depend on their involvement in livestock rearing, cropping and mixed crop-livestock farming systems. Household adaptation strategies vary across communities in Aba’ala district .These communities are widely known for managing their livestock through a nomadic strategy. They pursue livestock mobility in search of natural pasture and water sources. Semi-pastoral community members are those who were originally pure pastoralists but started to evolve into cropping over the last three decades. Although these communities are land owners, their involvement in cropping is only through renting or sharecropping to other farmers. Their livelihood dominantly depends on livestock rearing with a sedentary lifestyle in permanent houses. Their adaptation strategies to climate change and drought include livestock mobility, sharecropping, trading and participating in some other off-farm activities such as wages and salaries. The agro-pastoral community members mainly raise cattle, have their own land and directly produce cereals. They cope with adverse events of climate change by collecting animal feed . The mixed crop-livestock farming community members have their own land and rent-in or share-in cultivable land from others . The main source for their living is crop farming. They keep raising a small number of cattle for draught power and small ruminant animals to supplement their produce from cropping. Data from the four communities were collected in two stages of primary surveys. First, a reconnaissance appraisal was conducted to have a broader understanding on adaptive behaviours of farmers that dwell in the study area. During the exploratory survey, a series of discussions were held with various stakeholders including clan leaders, farmers, pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, extension workers and agricultural experts.
Pertinent information obtained from the first stage was used to refine the study objectives,sliding grow tables sampling methods and the survey instrument. In the second stage, we stratified the community into mixed-farming, agro-pastoral, semi-pastoral and pastoral, whereby sample households were selected from each stratum randomly. Based on the four community classifications, sampling across 11 Kebeles in the Aba’ala districts was made. Out of the 11 Kebeles, five were pastorals, three were semi-pastorals, one was agro-pastoral; the remaining two are mixed-farming communities. To ensure appropriate representation of each stratum, a two-stage stratification sampling method was applied to minimize heterogeneities among groups . In total, there were about 2,236 households across the four groups. Proportionately, the number of households in each stratum constituted 763 pastoral, 287 semi-pastoral, 508 agro-pastoral and 678 mixed-farming communities. In the end, 325 representative sample households were randomly selected from the four groups, out of which, 110 were pastoral, 43 semi-pastoral, 74 agro-pastoral and 98 mixed-farming communities. Among those 325 household heads randomly selected for sampling, we were unable to collect data from 12 households due to change in their address during the five consecutive years. Hence, a balanced panel data of 313 sample households was gathered in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. To preclude seasonal variations, data collection was conducted every November. Four enumerators who have good knowledge regarding the study area were hired and trained for the survey. After developing and completing preparation of the structured questionnaire, a pre-test survey was conducted on 12 households, the feed backs of which were incorporated in the full survey. Qualitative data were also gathered to supplement data types that cannot be obtained via quantitative methods.This would validate the quantitative results to come up with story lines of information about local practices of adaptation to climate change for improving their livelihood sources. Before setting out on fieldwork for data collection, clan leaders, religious leaders, agricultural experts, village administrators and elders were selected to hold group discussions. The important criterion for the inclusion of such discussions in this context was based on their pertinence for substantiating the findings. During the discussion, ethnographical methods were used to explore the contribution of Afar communities and highland settlers in building livelihood assets.As shown in Table 1, the mean age of households was 48.9 years. A given household constituted an average family size of six members whose age ranged between 15 and 64 years.
According to International Labor Office , this age category is termed as the active economic labour force population. This shows that the availability of the active labour force in rural areas is an opportunity to apply locally based adaptation strategies. For instance, a physically capable labour force can easily accomplish various environmental conservation actions, which would enable the locals to cope with risks related to climatic change. The implication is that local development plans that incorporate participation of an active labour force across rural villages may enhance sustainable income options and minimizing climate-related risks. The study findings also indicated that the average size of families whose age was below 15 and greater than 64 years were 3 and 0.09, respectively. The ILO named these age categories as a dependent labour force. In terms of gender distribution, 84% of the household heads were males and the remaining 16% were females. Based on ideas obtained from key informants and group discussants, females in the Afar region were generally burdened with indoor family management tasks, which deterred them from accessing various income-generating activities such as possible benefits from livestock rearing and off-farm activities. The result is consistent with other studies conducted by Chala et al. and FAO . Females in Ethiopia have cultural hindrances that obstruct their involvement in various developmental activities outside their home. Women are highly engaged in family management and indoor house duties such as cooking, washing and taking care of their children. Because of these extra burdens, it is hard for them to access formal education and work outside homes seeking to supplement their financial situations. Among the household heads, 66.9% did not get any chance to get a formal education, 19.6% could write and read, 13.5% reached primary level, and nobody went to secondary school. It was presumed that more educated people would have more awareness about the effects of climate change and ability to apply adaptation measures. The mean level of household’s working experience in livestock farming was almost 25 years. The major livestock holdings across the household heads were cattle , goats, sheep and camels . Among livestock owners who already moved to other potential areas, 6% reported that they continued moving for more than one month until they get sufficient pasture and water sources. Once livestock owners moved to a certain district, they no longer keep moving if they find sufficient feed for their cattle. In the study, a majority of livestock owners did not make repeating movements after they found adequate feed resources in certain areas. Hence, accessibility to animal feed and water resources determines household’s movement.Households were requested to provide their views about whether they were sensitive to the effects of climate change. The majority reported that successive occurrences of droughts and the vulnerable nature of livestock farming in the Afar region had heightened their sensitivity in terms of crop failure and animal decimation over the last five years. Table 2 presents information about the perception of household heads across the four community groups and the degree of climatic effects they perceived.