Abstract
Smallholder farmers in semi-arid regions continuously face drought risk, leading to recurring crop damage, income loss and food insecurity, and they are taking adaptive measures to cope with this risk. By comparing and combining empirical data and existing behavioural theories, we studied the complexity of smallholder farmers' adaptive behaviour in Kitui, Kenya. We conducted interviews with key informants, a survey of disaster managers and an extensive questionnaire and choice experiment among local smallholders, and found that mistrust in forecasting and a strong belief in God appeared to be barriers to adaptation, while farm groups and past adaptation decisions seemed to stimulate the intention to adopt new measures. Our results confirmed the importance of several components of existing bounded rational theories in that risk appraisal, social norm, self-efficacy and response cost and efficacy significantly influence adaptive behaviour under drought risk. However, none of the evaluate theories could fully explain the observed behaviour. We further demonstrated that tailored extension services, improved early warning systems, ex-ante cash aid and low interest credit schemes increase the intention to adapt. While a general aversion to the current situation was evident, there was great heterogeneity in the preferences for these policies. Findings of this the extensive data collection and analysis can be used to identify the most vulnerable groups and develop well-targeted adaptation policies, and for designing, calibrating and validating of utility functions to model heterogeneous adjustment decisions in dynamic drought risk models.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 102435 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-15 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction |
| Volume | 63 |
| Early online date | 6 Jul 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to thank Dr. Ralph Lasage, Prof. Mary Mburu, Mr. Mutinda Munguti and the entire Sasol staff, for their help in setting up the data collection effort. This research would not have been possible without the help in the field of Emmanuel Mboi, Bobsammy Mwende, Nicholas Nzuka and Stellah Kitonga. We gratefully acknowledge Aisha Maeda, Nick Van der Lee, Sarah Huelsen, Lisan Bijlewaerde and Merel Laauwen for their help with survey data collection and data analysis. Lastly, we would like to express sincere gratitude to the scientist reviewing this manuscript who provided constructive feedback allowing us to improve it significantly. This research is funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research VICI research project number 453?583 13-006 and European Research Council grants nos. 884442 and 948601.
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Dr. Ralph Lasage, Prof. Mary Mburu, Mr. Mutinda Munguti and the entire Sasol staff, for their help in setting up the data collection effort. This research would not have been possible without the help in the field of Emmanuel Mboi, Bobsammy Mwende, Nicholas Nzuka and Stellah Kitonga. We gratefully acknowledge Aisha Maeda, Nick Van der Lee, Sarah Huelsen, Lisan Bijlewaerde and Merel Laauwen for their help with survey data collection and data analysis. Lastly, we would like to express sincere gratitude to the scientist reviewing this manuscript who provided constructive feedback allowing us to improve it significantly. This research is funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research VICI research project number 453–583 13-006 and European Research Council grants nos. 884442 and 948601 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Funding
The authors would like to thank Dr. Ralph Lasage, Prof. Mary Mburu, Mr. Mutinda Munguti and the entire Sasol staff, for their help in setting up the data collection effort. This research would not have been possible without the help in the field of Emmanuel Mboi, Bobsammy Mwende, Nicholas Nzuka and Stellah Kitonga. We gratefully acknowledge Aisha Maeda, Nick Van der Lee, Sarah Huelsen, Lisan Bijlewaerde and Merel Laauwen for their help with survey data collection and data analysis. Lastly, we would like to express sincere gratitude to the scientist reviewing this manuscript who provided constructive feedback allowing us to improve it significantly. This research is funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research VICI research project number 453?583 13-006 and European Research Council grants nos. 884442 and 948601. The authors would like to thank Dr. Ralph Lasage, Prof. Mary Mburu, Mr. Mutinda Munguti and the entire Sasol staff, for their help in setting up the data collection effort. This research would not have been possible without the help in the field of Emmanuel Mboi, Bobsammy Mwende, Nicholas Nzuka and Stellah Kitonga. We gratefully acknowledge Aisha Maeda, Nick Van der Lee, Sarah Huelsen, Lisan Bijlewaerde and Merel Laauwen for their help with survey data collection and data analysis. Lastly, we would like to express sincere gratitude to the scientist reviewing this manuscript who provided constructive feedback allowing us to improve it significantly. This research is funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research VICI research project number 453–583 13-006 and European Research Council grants nos. 884442 and 948601 .
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Aisha Maeda | |
| European Research Council | 948601, 884442 |
| Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | 453–583 13-006 |
Keywords
- Adaptation decisions
- Adaptive behaviour
- Disaster risk reduction
- Drought risk
- Expected utility theory
- Kenya
- Protection motivation theory
- Smallholder farmers
- Theory of planned behaviour
