Enhancing Smallholder Farmers’ Resilience Through Effective Climate Communication Channels in Rwanda: a Case Study of Ruhango District

Abstract

Globally climate change has been a major constraint towards achieving food security. Therefore, adaptation to climate change is imperative to reduce farmers’ vulnerability. The production and provision of climate information services (CIS) in Rwanda has increased, but their accessibility and utilization in decision-making have been limited. One approach to enhance resilience among the smallholder farmers is to provide them with timely, accurate and reliable climate information services through effective communication channels. This study investigated, among others, the Climate Information and Services (CIS) communication channels accessed by the smallholder farmers in Ruhango district of Rwanda; the farmers' social-economic characteristics which influence the accessibility of those channels and the factors inhibiting the use of the available climate information services effectively in decision-making. Also, this study assessed the available adaptation practices applied by the smallholder farmers to tackle the impacts of climate change experienced in their area. A total of 159 smallholder farmers were interviewed by using the Survey CTO computer software application installed in Tablets; while Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) tool was used to gather information extension officers. The study utilized primary data gathered from smallholder farmers and extension officers asked to answer the questions planned for the first, second, third and fourth objectives. All collected data were analyzed using SPSS for all objectives. The results showed that majority (91.2%) accessed of only the daily weather forecast where the radio was the main dissemination channel followed by mobile phone. Family size was only the socio-economic characteristic established to be statistically significant in influencing the accessibility to communication channels. Among the smallholder farmers that accessed CIS, only 11.9% used it. The majority (88.1%) of smallholder farmers who did not use the CIS said it is due from “lack of trust based on untimely and unreliable climate information received in previous years. While all the respondents (100%) were confirmed that “the Climate has changed. Only anti-erosion practices were reported to be dominant (53.5%) applied as adaptation practice. To enhance the farmer’s trust in CIS, the forecasters should have paid special attention to know and meet the farmers’ needs and the provision of accurate, timely and reliable climate information services to smallholder farmers should be the priority of climate information and services’ providers.