Abstract:
Farming by resource-poor and inadequately informed farmers with fixed best-bet strategies
under seasonal variability and changing climate in the semi-arid Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia
has often proven to be of very low flexibility. While, struggling to survive in the face of high
risks, farmers in semi arid-arid areas need flexible seasonal adaptation strategies. The
“Response Farming” (RF) methodology, a system that derives forecast of seasonal rainfall from
very early rain occurrences, and makes choices of crops and practices to conform to the
forecasts was evaluated. The potential of RF in improving traditional adaptation measures
employed to current rainfall variability and to observed and projected climate change was
investigated. RF turned out superior to both research and farmers’ production strategies. Our
evaluation of climate variability and change interventions (RF) show that adaptation strategies,
based on RF modeling using long-term weather records, to be useful keys for improving
traditional adaptation strategies and to make farming ecologically sustainable and economically
feasible as climate change unfolds.
