Review on Perception and Adaptation Strategies of Smallholder Farmers’ to Climate Change in Ethiopia

Ethiopian Smallholder farmers is highly vulnerable to climate variability and  change due to its great reliance on  climate sensetive economy .Different empirical evidence's has put forward about climate change perception and adaptation practices.However, the findings of  major  studies are highly aggregated and are of little help in addressing  local peculiarities of perception and adaptation strategies .While, others were vague to understandand  and finally difficult to implement at farm level. Hence ,this paper reviews the empirical literature on smallholder farmers’ perceptions and adaptation strategies of climate change in Ethiopia with specific objectives of; to review the Smallholder framers’ perception to climate change, to identify climate change adaptation strategies used by Smallholder farmers’ and to review factors that determine smallholder farmers choice of  climate change adaptation strategies in Ethiopia.This paper was prepared through wide spread review of  empirical  evidence's. The review found that the majority of farmers in Ethiopia are aware of climate change in average change in temperatures and rainfall pattern with passion of weather extremes such as droughts ,floods,pest and disease manifestation. To deal with up the unfavorable sound effects of climate change, farmers have adopted strategies like crop diversification, using improved varieties, changing planting and harvesting dates, irrigation, planting tree crops, water and soil conservation techniques,switching to non-farm income activities, marketing during forage shock, using drought tolerant breed andfodder preservation.But , preference of adaptation strategies differs from place to place, farms to farms, and households capacity. At household level, most of the empirical evidence revealed Agro-ecological setting, sex, education level, landholding, farm income, non-farm income, livestock ownership, access to credit, extension visit, farmer-to-farmer extension, access to climate information and average distance from home to the farm have significant influence on the choice of climate adaptation strategies.The review result depicted that  there is much dearth of empirical evidences regarding  livestock sectors so far as much of the research is focused on crop sector's.Therefore, it has been suggested to further investigate deep rooted emperical evidence's on adaptation strategies of livestock sectors and available indigenous knowledge especially in pastoral  areas.Further more, there is a need to explore impacts of climate change and single adaptation strategies on livelihood of smallholder's farmers at each farm level autonomously. Keywords: adaptation strategies; climate change; Ethiopia, perceptions; Smallholder farmer's DOI: 10.7176/IAGS/82-03 Publication date:May 31st 202

Hide and Skin Value Chain in Ethiopia

Ethiopia's economy is predominantly agricultural where the livestock sub-sector plays substantial role. Hides and skin is an important strategic sector for the economic and industrial development of Ethiopia. Though the country has very good potential for supplying finished skins and hides products to the world market, the quality of skins and hides supplied has rather deteriorated over time. Therefore, this seminar was conducted to review hide and skin value chain in Ethiopia, to review  hide and skin value chain actors, maps  and its value addition in Ethiopia, to review  the  major constraints and opportunities of hide and skin in Ethiopia ,to review hides and skins production ,utilization  and  its constraint  in Ethiopia and to review hide and skin marketing and its constraints in Ethiopia . Poor quality of hides and skins , Poor animal husbandry ,Improper preserved hides and skins ,Lack of price incentives ,absence of quality grading, reflections of the economic policy, market information, and requirements from the tanneries and end market are main challenge observed  hide and skin value chain . Creation of awareness among extension staff, butchers, collectors, tanners and other stakeholders and the general public of the economic importance of hides and skins are very important. Developing Clear pricing  system based on grading and standard of hide and skin and improving access to market information  As well as Clear policy and strategy for the development of hide and skin sector should be developed by Member State that have not done   so far. Keywords: Hide and skin, value chain, Actors, marketing constraints DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/53-0

Risk perceptions and attitudinal responses to COVID-19 pandemic : an online survey in Ethiopia

Background Effective risk communication is one of the critical strategies in the response to COVID-19. This study examined risk perceptions and attitudinal responses to COVID-19 among the educated section of the society in Ethiopia. Methods An internet-based survey was conducted from April 22 to May 04, 2020, in Ethiopia. A questionnaire addressing the perception of health threat-combination of perceived vulnerability (PV) and perceived seriousness (PS), and perceived efficacy-combinations of perceived response efficacy (PRE), perceived self-efficacy (PSE), and perceived collective efficacy (PCE). The data were analyzed using SPSS 21.0. Descriptive statistics were computed after the standardization of the scores. The scores for overall efficacy and threat were split by median value and response classifications were generated through threat by efficacy interactions. For statistical significance, 95% CI and p-value < 0.05 were used. Results A total of 929 respondents submitted their responses. Eight hundred and twenty-eight (89.1%) of the respondents were male and 753 (81.1%) were Christian. The perceived threat to COVID-19 was generally low (median = 58.3). The median score for overall efficacy, PRE, and PSE were 79.8, 87.5, and 80.0, respectively. However, the median value (66.7) for PCE was relatively low. Perceived threat significantly varied by age, education, occupation, and place of residence (p < 0.05). Perceived efficacy significantly differed by gender, residence, and use of some sources of information (p < 0.05). In terms of response to COVID-19, 290 (31.2%), 239 (25.7%), 175 (18.8%) and 225 (24.2%) of the respondents were in the responsive, pro-active, avoidant, and indifferent attitudinal categories, respectively. The avoidant and indifferent groups constituted a fear control response (mal-adaptive motivation towards COVID-19 protective behavior) whereas responsive and pro-active categories formed a danger control response (self-protective motivation). These responses varied significantly by residence, region, religion, and sources of information (p < 0.05). Conclusions Understanding people's perceived health threat and efficacy is a critical step toward creating risk communication campaigns. Hence, this study provided an insight that has the potential to inform the COVID-19 risk communication campaigns targeting the educated section of the society, by ensuring a balanced combination of threat appeals and efficacy messages for improved self-protective responses