Institute of Resource Assessment

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Browsing Institute of Resource Assessment by Subject "Agricultural conditions"

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    The relevance of indigenous knowledge based adaptation in improving small scale farmers’ livelihoods in Mbale district, Uganda
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2017) Wakube, Charles
    This study aimed at determining the extent to which small scale farmers’ livelihoods could be improved through use of indigenous knowledge (IK) based adaptation strategies in Mbale district, Uganda. Using a combination of participatory research approaches and household surveys, the study assessed the socio-economic characteristics of people and established their perception and understanding of climate variability and change. It also established the extent to which IK is used in climate change adaptation as compared to scientific knowledge (SK) within agricultural systems and explored the challenges and opportunities related to integrating IK and SK to improve adaptation. Findings revealed that 78.10% of the farmers were engaged in crop production, 18.2% in livestock, while 3.70% were engaged in non-agricultural livelihoods. Whereas 96.5% of responses show that farmers understand climate change and its impacts on livelihoods, findings indicate that 96.3% said IK was crucial in improving livelihoods. Also 79.6% of respondents acknowledged that relationship existed between IK and SK, 70.5% support their integration, however, 88.5% of farmers revealed that SK’s mode of communication was not area specific and not occurring as predicted, coupled with hardness to interpret locally. The study recommends local weather data collection and monitoring centers in the district and improvement of information accuracy by training and equipping local monitors to collect and analyze data for local application. Meteorological Authority should involve local farmers, extension workers, schools and other actors in collecting, summarizing and interpreting meteorological data to inform local early warning systems. Government should integrate meteorological information; IK and climate change in formal primary and secondary education, and ascertain behavior of IK indicators amidst climate change.