Adaptation to Climate Change: Lessons from Farmer Responses to Environmental Changes in Ghana

Abstract

In developing agricultural countries, climate change poses a major socioeconomic threat because agriculture, which is the primary source of livelihood, is mainly rain fed. As such, agriculture is highly susceptible to climate change, including deteriorating moisture conditions. Aware of their vulnerability to adverse changes in local environments, as a survival strategy, smallholder farmers use their knowledge of the environment to modify the farming and other resource management practices along with their socioeconomic conduct as a whole in the wake of their changing operating circumstances. This chapter argues that such responses, which are borne out of traditional, local, or indigenous knowledge, offer lessons for the formulation of realistic local-level strategies to adapt to climate change to complement systematic scientific models. It draws from case studies in Ghana to explore the prospects of developing such strategies. Based on the case studies, we identified more than 50 actual responses to environmental change, including agrodiverse biological responses that appear particularly appropriate for developing climate change-adaptive models and, possibly, for developing mitigative measures, which farmers recognize as an important need.