Climate change perceptions, drought responses and views on carbon farming amongst commercial livestock and game farmers in the semiarid Great Fish River Valley, Eastern Cape province, South Africa

Abstract

There is increasing evidence that climate change will be one of the primary challenges facing future development and agriculture. Farmers, whether crop or livestock farmers, will be faced with tradeoffs and constraints as climate change exposes them to greater risk and renders some of their current practices unworkable. This study assessed commercial livestock and game farmers’ knowledge and perceptions of climate variability and change in the semiarid Great Fish River Valley, South Africa, and their coping responses to a severe regional drought in 2009/2010. Detailed questionnaires revealed that farmers’ knowledge of global climate change was incomplete, suggesting that measures are needed to increase their understanding and awareness of likely impacts. Farmers were able to articulate a consistent story regarding how they believed local climate to have changed and most had implemented a variety of coping strategies in order to endure the drought. Some of these strategies were seen to have the potential to become longer-term adaptive practices. Farmers were, on the whole, open to considering new approaches and land uses such as carbon farming with Portulacaria afra (spekboom) to help them adapt to a more uncertain future.

Keywords: carbon farming, climate change adaptation, drought, livestock farmers, subtropical thicket

African Journal of Range & Forage Science 2012, 29(1): 13–23