Impacts of prolonged droughts on cattle keeping in Nakaseke District, Ngoma Subcounty

Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa is considered to be highly vulnerable to climate change related disasters particularly drought. Farmers in Nakaseke have learnt to co-exist with it by resorting to various approaches. This study focuses on the drought characterization and the farmers’ adaptation to drought in the study area. The study was guided by three specific objectives; (1) To determine the drought characteristics in Nakaseke district Ngoma subregion from 1991 to 2020; (2) To determine the impacts of drought on cattle keeping in Nakaseke district Ngoma subregion and (3) To examine the mitigation and adaptation strategies to impacts of drought in Nakaseke district Ngoma subregion. The cross-sectional survey research design was used to assess the farmers perceptions and their adaptation strategies and it adopted the inverse distance weighting, IDW interpolation method for displaying spatially the drought characteristics. Results stated that the drought characteristics exhibited in a number of months basing on the standard precipitation index and severe periods of below normal rainfall (drought) majorly occurred during the dry the season of December to February (DJF), while mild dry conditions occurred during the main rainfall seasons. The spatial drought characteristics indicated that the mean intensity of drought varies spatially. It is indicated that the Northern and the southern parts of the sub county are much prone to moderate drought conditions. Additionally, all the respondents concerted to have observed the implications of the occurrences of drought in their area leading to adverse impacts such as reduction in milk production, reproduction of cattle, scarcity of forage and water which sometimes eventually leading to the death of animals. The study therefore recommends that farmers should be given financial support and farm inputs to aid their adaptation ability.