The impact of climate variability on people's livelihood in Isingiro District

Abstract

There is a big relationship between climate variability and Agriculture in that the impacts caused by climate variability and changes such as droughts, floods highly affect the agricultural production and Agriculture is one the most important sectors in Uganda’s economy responsible for people’s livelihood, and it is rain-fed and therefore this is affected by changes in climate variability that may result into food insecurity and other negative impacts on people’s lives. This study aimed at identifying the impacts of climate variability on people’s livelihood in and this was done inline Determining the trend of climate variability, people’s perceptions towards climate variability and the copying Mechanisms used by people to adopt to the impacts of climate variability Isingiro District and these were done in Isingiro District as a study area and using different methods such as questionnaires and Mann Kendell to determine the trend of climate variability. Data was collected from 140 respondents using a structured questionnaire and also temperature and rainfall data from Uganda National Meteorological Authority. The trend results showed that there was no significance in the trend and annual rainfall had increased with a decrease in the mean Temperature and questionnaire result indicated 81.4% practiced crop production and among the impacts of climate variability 28.3% of changing seasons was found to have resulted and tree planting was the most practiced activity as a way of copying to the impacts of climate variability with 31.5% and the impacts were found to be food shortage, water shortage, change of planting seasons, human death, crop failure, livestock death. Human and natural factors were considered as major causes of climate variability and However, human activities were perceived to be the major causes of variability in climatic conditions and the study recommends that at least every individual should take up an initiative to reduce the human activities so as to reduce the impacts of climate variability. The study also recommends that measures that are cost-effective, efficient and coherent should be promoted to control the impacts of climate variability which would include the adoption of improved planting methods and use of fertilizers with proper management of erosion. Off-season planting should be controlled and reduced by farmers especially those that practiced in the wetlands should be dis-couraged by the local administration and the National Environment Management Authority. This calls for a collective action involving the agricultural practitioners and inline civil society organizations to ensure that farmers have access to such inputs for the improvement in their livelihood.