Assessing the Sustainability of Climate Change Response Measures to Farming Practices in an agricultural enclave in the Eastern Region of Ghana

Abstract

Given the fundamental role of agriculture in human welfare, concern has been expressed regarding the potential net effects of climate change on agricultural productivity. Response strategies to climate change impact in the Agricultural sector is therefore an imperative. However, not all response activities to climate change impact can be considered good enough to be sustainable. Thus the study investigated the response strategies of farmers in Oboadaka, a farming community in eastern region of Ghana as to whether they qualified as sustainable impact response measures or otherwise. The framework for classifying the impact response measures was summarized as follows: reacting to experienced and/ or current impacts alone qualified as coping whereas such measures that in addition to reacting to current impacts anticipated future impacts and allowed a plan to adaptively manage the response measures qualified as sustainable adaptation. The method employed to achieve the results was largely qualitative case study method. The findings established the fact that farmers perceived the climate to have changed; farmers viewed climate variability and climate change to mean the same thing- a change in weather patterns whether long or short
term. It emerged that the responses to the impact of climate change were part of reactionary responses or strategies which were short term. Analyzing the strategies, it was concluded that, the climate change impact response practices of farmers in the study area qualified as coping and not sustainable adaptation
measures needed to build resilience to future climate change.