Climate Variability and Its implication on Wheat Productivity; Farmers' Adaptation strategies: in Robe Town and Surrounding Area, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Climate variability has a drastic impact on wheat output and production. Robe town and its surrounding area, south eastern Ethiopia, is among the highly vulnerable areas. The aim of the study was to analyze climate variability and its implications on wheat productivity in Robe town and the surrounding area. The descriptive experimental and survey research strategy was conducted for this study. ARIMA model was used to forecast medium time scale for mean annual temperature and rainfall. To strengthen the finding of the study primary data on the implication of climate variability on Wheat yields and coping strategies used by the farmers in response to climate variability risk were collected by selecting the sample Households. To select sample Households, first three kebeles were purposively selected based on the numbers of farmers exist in those kebeles. Then probabilistic proportionate to size technique was applied to determine the total sample household size from each kebele. Ultimately, a total of 160 sample household heads were selected by using simple random sampling technique. The results of the study shows that the temperature of the town has increased by 0.040c and the total annual rainfall shows 0.28mm decrement per year over the years considered. 1mm decrement of spring rainfall would result to 0.014 quintal decrement of wheat yields per hectare per year whereas 10c increment of annual temperature would result to 1.41quintal decrement of yield. The current study also found significant variation in the amount of rainfall and temperature. Majority of the coping mechanisms used by the farmers are traditional and destructive. For the future there will be appreciable increase in temperature (0.71 to 1.270c) and increasing wheat yield fluctuation due to temperature and rainfall instability.