Local community adaptation to climate change in Ibulanku sub county Bugweri District.
Abstract
Bugweri district, east of Uganda, East Africa, has a backdrop of troubling malnutrition, most especially among infants, with a high population of about 2.96 million people. The region is highly vulnerable to climate change, indicative of reduced food production attributed to the growing sugar industry in the region.
Most of the farmers in the region carry out subsistence farming and cannot afford improved farming practices such as irrigation, abandoning their fields during dry spells and floods. Most of these entirely depend on cultivation; a few rear livestock as their sole sources of livelihood, thus making them more vulnerable to climate change shocks, disasters, and occurrences. There are neither government interventions nor community farmer groups in the Ibulanku Sub-County that can boost their traditional farming practices.
The essence of this study was to provide information about how the people of Ibulanku Sub County are coping with climate change. I am optimistic that this information can be used to formulate, review, and implement national policies, plans, strategies, regulations, and standards along value chain crops, regulation of water resources, and sensitization of these communities, respectively.