Assessment of farmers’ accessibility to climate change related information for adaptation in Tanzania: a case study of Kondoa District, Dodoma Region

The increasingly changing global climate poses a threat on agriculture as well as the livelihood of farming communities in Tanzania including Kondoa district where by agriculture is the most important source of livelihood to local communities, which contibutes for over 90% of the district’s economy (PMO–RALG, 2012). Unfortunately, farming communities in Kondoa district are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This is because they highly depend on rainfed agriculture, and that being in semi arid climate increases their exposure. Adaptation practices to the negative impacts of climate change in agriculture involves many things, such as awareness on planting dates, choosing of better seeds and other more. Access to climate change related information for adaptation is crucial in such adaptation practices. For example access of daily weather forecast (on temperature, rainfall onset, patterns and amount) and types of crop to grow is very important to farmers in minimizing the negative impacts brought by climate change. The study was looking on assessing smallholder farmer’s access to and the contribution of climate change related information for adaptation and thus the specific objectives was to assess the trend and famers perceptions of climate change and climate change impact on farming livelihood, to examine the main sources of climate change related information relevant for farmers’ adaptation and finally to examine farmers access and utilization of climate change related information for adaptation. The study was conducted in Kondoa district, Dodoma region. The survey covered six villages whereby purposive sampling was used. The procedure aimed at selecting heads of households from small holder farmers where the total number of 545 heads of households was selected as respondents. Primary data were collected through Questionnaire, focus group discussions, interview with the key informants and physical observation. Secondary data were obtained through library search, documentary reviews and materials retrieved from the internet were subjected to content analysis. The results show that, small holder farmers in Kondoa district are aware that the climate is changing and it affects agricultural activities. Moreover, Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) seems to be the main source of climate change related information for farmer’s adaptation in the study area. It further indicated that farmers have ability to access climate change related information for adaptation through Radio broadcast and village meetings. They utilize the information by using drought tolerant crops, early maturing seeds and planting more trees. The main conclusions drawn is that; small holder farmers perceive climate change in changes of rainfall, temperature, an increase in drought, water availability and outbreak of diseases. They also suffer from those changes in different ways. Moreover they adapt from those changes by using drought tolerant crops, early maturing seeds and planting more tree. The main recommendations are mass media with more coverage on climate change and adaptation information should be accessible in rural areas, information from TMA should be reliable and area specific, also government should provide education, seminars and better seeds to small holder farmers in rural areas of Tanzania.