Assessing the impact of drought on sorghum production in Kotido district, Karamoja sub-region.

Abstract

Drought is regarded as a leading cause of food insecurity affecting many communities especially in the in sub-Saharan Africa. This study was set out to assess the impact of drought on agricultural food production in Kotido district, Karamoja sub-region. The specific objectives of the study were to; (i) examine the characteristics of drought in Kotido from 2000 to 2021, (ii) examine the trends in the production of sorghum in Kotido from 2000 to 2021, and (iii) examine the impact of drought on the sorghum production in Kotido district during the period. The data on rainfall from 2000 to 2021 was obtained from NASA POWER to determine the magnitude of the drought while the sorghum production data from 2000 to 2021 was obtained from the agricultural officer records office. It was found out that Kotido has had 4 severe drought periods under SPI-3 and 2 severe drought periods under SPI-6. Results further indicated that the longest and severe drought conditions were recorded between 2000-2002 and late 2018 to early 2019 (average SPI= -1.89) respectively. The trend for both SPI-3 and 6 months were found to be increasing significantly with p-values 0.000001 and 0.00006 respectively. The results also revealed a decrease in the drought in conjunction with an increase in rainfall over time. The most prolonged continuous period of drought was 3 years in the period 2000 to 2002. The highest drought index was recorded in 2008 at SP-2.2. Sorghum production decreased over time with the highest production recorded in 2003 at 2258kgs/acre while the least production was recorded at 390kgs/acre in 2017. Lastly, the study revealed the drought predicted sorghum production but not significantly (F=1.157, p-value = 0.296), which also indicates that drought played insignificant role in the decrease of sorghum production (b=-48.923, p-value = 0.296). The study concludes that for the study period, drought had a minor impact on the production of sorghum as revealed by the R2 value (0.057). Therefore, there is need to investigate other social-economic factors that may be responsible for the reducing sorghum yield in the district.