Investigating climate change awareness and adaptation strategies among female farmers in the Lephalale municipal area in South Africa

Michael Obisesan and Munyaradzi Chitakira

African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 2021, vol. 13, issue 6, 727-734

Abstract: This study evaluated climate change awareness and adaptation strategies among female farmers in the Lephalale municipal area in the Limpopo province of South Africa. A concurrent mixed method research approach was undertaken. Qualitative data were obtained through five focus group discussions and a semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain quantitative data from 208 female farmers. The chi-square test of independence analysis showed that the climate change awareness level and the adaptation measures were significantly related to the educational level and geographic location of the female farmers. Moreover, 84% of the respondents considered the national government social grant as a major means of income and not farming. Although 53% of the respondents were not aware of the term ‘climate change’, the female farmers confirmed having observed variance in temperature and rainfall over the years which they regarded as natural phenomena. Inadequate knowledge of climate change and limited access to credit facilities affected the respondents’ capacity to adapt to climate change. The study concluded that climate change awareness level among female farmers influences their adaptation measures against climate change. The study recommends the promotion of farmer-to-farmer extension and intensification of extension services in the study area to enhance the level of awareness of climate change through physical interaction with the farmers.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/20421338.2020.1796005 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rajsxx:v:13:y:2021:i:6:p:727-734

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rajs20

DOI: 10.1080/20421338.2020.1796005

Access Statistics for this article

African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development is currently edited by None

More articles in African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().