查看文章

This study was conducted to understand the rural farming community’s perception of drought, examine the socio-economic and environmental impacts of droughts and to identify and examine the drought coping mechanisms in place by individual households in the area. The study was based on primary and secondary data collected from 1000 farming household’s survey. The data was analysed using IBM SPSS version 20. The results indicate that there was massive failure in terms of crop yield; lack of food and hence less preference or choice due to its scarcity. Loss of employment and reduction in income of the households are the economic challenges of drought and are perceived to a very high extent. The other social impacts which were also perceived to very high extent include population migration in search of employment and better living conditions, poor health condition; schooling of children and food security, malnutrition and conflicts over scarce water resources among others. The environmental impacts such as increase in average atmospheric temperature, pasture and forest degradation, deterioration of water quality, damage to fish and wild life habitat and ground water depletion were perceived by farmers to high and very high extent. The main adaptation strategies to drought which the farmers employed include: planting drought resistant variety of crops, cross-ridging, irrigation practices, delay farm clearance, application of fertilizer/manure, planting of more trees in the farm, early sowing, and changing of crop calendar among others. Despite the farmers’ experience, commitments to droughts and farming as well as their familiarity …