Analysis of Rice Farmers' Adaptation to Climate Change in the Ruzizi Plain (Drc)

Abstract

The importance of adaptation strategies in helping rice farmers meet the many challenges of agricultural production cannot be overstated. However, few existing studies have been conducted to determine the adaptation strategies developed at the farm level by rice farmers. Even fewer studies have been conducted on how these strategies should be strengthened to help them manage climate impacts more effectively. With climate change a major threat to smallholder food production, it is increasingly important to address this issue. This paper evaluates rice farmers' adaptation to climate change in the Ruzizi plain. First, the Heckman selection equation model with endogenous switching was used to determine the factors that influence rice farmers’ adaptation decisions and the associated benefits. The results found that rice farmer age, education level, access to credit, livestock sales, flooding, and climatic factors influence the adaptation decision of rice farmers in the Ruzizi plain. All policies to support rice farmers in the Ruzizi plain to adapt to the effects of climate change should be made with a focus on these significant variables. Second, these results are consistent and show that farmers who adapted have realized much higher yields than farmers who did not adapt. Then, if the rice farmers who adapted had chosen not to adapt, they would have lost more yields. Whereas the rice farmers who did not adapt could gain if they chose to adapt.

Keywords: Rice farmers, Adaptation benefits, Climate change, Ruzizi Plain, Eastern DR Congo, Sub-Saharan Africa