Climate Change/Variability Impacts on Farmers livelihoods and Adaptation Strategies: In the Case of Ensaro District, Ethiopia Abirham Cherinet* Ethiopian Environment and Forest Research Institute, Central Ethiopia Environment and Forest Research Center, Ethiopia Submission: February 18, 2019; Published: March 22, 2019 *Corresponding author: Abirham Cherinet, Ethiopian Environment and Forest Research Institute, Central Ethiopia Environment and Forest Research Center, P.O. Box: 30708, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Int J Environ Sci Nat Res 18(1): IJESNR.MS.ID.555976 (2019) 001 Research Article Volume 18 Issue 1 - March 2019 DOI: 10.19080/IJESNR.2019.18.555976 Int J Environ Sci Nat Res Copyright © All rights are reserved by Abirham Cherinet Introduction Climate change is a global challenge facing humans and their socio-economic activities, health livelihood, and food security [1-4]. Climate change is a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity. It alters the composition of the global and/or regional atmosphere and natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. No country or human being can be free from the impacts of climate change including animals. Both developed and underdeveloped nations and poor and rich peoples are also affected by its impacts. Therefore, underdeveloped nations and the poor are more vulnerable to the impact [5]. Rural farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa are likely to be more vulnerable to climate change, particularly because of compounding challenges of poverty, low infrastructural and technological development, and their economy is highly dependent on rain-fed agriculture [6-9]. Over 95% of agricultural production in sub-Saharan African is depends on rain [10-12]. The high vulnerability level of African nations to climate change is not only because of their economy depends on natural resource but also their resources are low and fewer options they have to combat the impacts of climate change/variability [13]. Due to those reasons, millions of African peoples may likely face catastrophes, and extreme weather events are likely to become more intense and more frequent. Particularly Ethiopia is among the most vulnerable countries to climate variability with little adaptive capacity. Specifically, high levels of poverty, rapid population growth, and high level of reliance on rain-fed agriculture, high levels of environmental degradation, chronic food insecurity and frequent natural drought cycles are the major vulnerability drivers to climate change in the country [14]. Climatic changes have resulted several negative consequences on livelihood, health, economy and environment of the people in Ethiopia [15]. As the impacts of climate change on the people varied from one to another, the adaptation strategies implemented by peoples are also not the same. In this regard, farmers in different areas are practicing Abstract This study identifies the major impacts of climate change and methods used by farmers to adapt the changing climate in Ensaro district, Ethiopia. 124 sample households were selected purposively from three rural kebele’s of the district and most of the respondents have perceived the increasing trend of temperature and the variation of rainfall in duration and intensity. The most significant impacts of climate variability and change as perceived by the local people were shortage of water, flood, landslide, drought, expose to disease, shortage of forage, force to out migrate, famine, loss of livestock and decline in crop yields. Prevalence of newly introduced human, crop and animal diseases, flooding, drying up of rivers and streams, rainfall variability in duration and amount and the variation of onset and offset date of rainfall are the most mentioned indicators of climate change by farmers. Communities disobeying of God, deforestation and population pressure were the major causes of climate change/variability as perceived by the respondents. Terracing, afforestation, rain water harvesting, crop diversification, use of improved crops, income diversification (petty trade, wage laborer etc.), seasonal migration to generate income and livestock management (destocking, cut and feeding system) are the most coping/adaptation strategies practiced by the farmers in the study area. Results from the binary logit model revealed that the respondent’s age, educational status, access to extension and farm experience have a positive and significant effect on farmer’s taking of adaptation measures. On the other hand, sex of household heads, small farm land size, less access to market and less access to credit have negative and significant effect on farmers taking of adaptation measures in the study area. Keywords: Climate change; Impacts; Adaptation; Barriers