Gendered impacts of climate change among smallholder farmers in Mpatta Sub-county, Mukono district
Abstract
Agriculture is the major economic activity for Uganda employing more than 80% of the population
with over 69% practicing subsistence agriculture as their main source of livelihood. Agriculture
performance fluctuates with changes in weather conditions and little research has been
documented to illustrate the gendered impacts of these climate fluctuations. This study explored
the gendered impacts, adaptation options and adaptation challenges to climate change in Mpatta
sub-county, Mukono district. Objectives of the study were: i) to find out the gendered impacts of
climate change on smallholder farming practices; ii) to identify the gendered climate change
adaptation strategies among smallholder farmers; iii) to find out the gendered based challenges
experienced as a result of climate change adaptation strategies and iv) to propose appropriate
gendered strategies that can be adopted to improve farmers‟ resilience to climate change impacts.
The data was collected using structured questionnaires. The study adopted a survey research design
which accommodated both the qualitative and quantitative methods. Both purposive and random
sampling methods were used to obtain 53 respondents. Data was collected using questionnaires,
photography cameras and observation. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and content
analysis.
The results of the study indicated that the farming practices of all respondents were impacted by
climate change. Climate change has heavily had serious negative impacts on the female
smallholder farmers than the male smallholder farmers for example female smallholder farmers
highly experience impacts in crop growing like reduced yields (100.0%) than male smallholder
farmers with (88.9%) and the female smallholder farmers highly experience inaccessibility of
water (88.5%) than male counterparts with (44.4%). Respondents practice a wide range of
coping and adaptation strategies where they differ according to gender for example male
smallholder farmers mostly use adaptation strategies such as application of pesticides (81.5%),
increase in land tillage (96.3%) and rain water harvesting (85.2%) while female smallholder
farmers mostly use intercropping (88.5%), change of planting dates (80.8%), crop rotation
(92.3%), storing of food (92.3%) and reducing water usage (96.3). Male smallholder farmers
have benefitted more from the government initiatives like provision/access to certified seeds
(66.7%) compared to female counterparts with (7.7%). The female smallholder farmers have faced
more challenges as a result of the climate change adaptation strategies than the male smallholder
farmers like limited capital, limited skills and small pieces of land. The proposed strategies that
can be adopted to improve farmer‟s resilience to climate change impacts were aimed more at
benefitting female smallholder farmers. Therefore, this study concluded that Mpatta sub-county
like many other African farming communities, female farmers are highly affected by climate
change effects and face a lot of problems in trying to adapt.