article · Nature Climate Change
Mountain regions face acute vulnerability to climate change, yet local adaptation actions within African mountain areas remain under-researched. A study of 1,500 farmers across ten African mountain regions assessed perceived climate impacts alongside adaptation strategies. The results demonstrate that farmers in every region perceive multiple climate effects. In response, they primarily intensify existing agricultural methods and take up off-farm labour. While communities share common adaptation constraints, other challenges depend heavily on local context. Overall, current responses remain predominantly incremental rather than transformational. However, specific factors such as social capital enable slightly more transformational adaptation across three locations in East Africa.
Understanding how vulnerable rural populations respond to climate change is critical for planning effective interventions. This work clarifies how African mountain farmers currently cope with shifting conditions. Recognizing that their actions are mostly incremental highlights the limits of existing local practices and the need for targeted support to foster transformational adaptation.
The abstract does not indicate a direct commercialisation pathway, as it focuses on empirical survey findings regarding farming behaviours and local constraints. However, development agencies, agricultural extension services, and adaptation programme designers could use the insights on farm intensification and social capital to inform future community-level interventions. The work represents early-stage social research rather than an applied commercial technology.
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Abstract Mountain regions are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. Yet, little is known about local adaptation responses in African mountain regions, especially if these are incremental or transformational. First, using household questionnaires, we interviewed 1,500 farmers across ten African mountain regions to investigate perceived climate change impacts and adaptation responses. Second, through a reflective process involving all co-authors, we identified: (1) main constraints and opportunities for adaptation, and (2) if adaptation was incremental or transformational. Questionnaire data show that farmers in all sites perceive multiple impacts, and that they mostly respond by intensifying farming practices and using off-farm labour. We established that, while several constraints were shared across sites, others were context specific; and that adaptation was mostly incremental, but that certain attributes (for example, social capital) made three sites in East Africa slightly more transformational.
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DOI: 10.1038/s41558-024-02221-w
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