14 pgs., The provision of farm management decision support and advisory services to insure climate resilient agricultural production systems, especially for subsistence farmers, depends on data on such producers. The main objective of the paper was to generate such data by comparing the status quo regarding dryland, subsistence grain farmers’ perceptions of climate variability, their adaptation strategies and crop productivity. Using a survey questionnaire, the comparison was made across time (2014 and 2017) in selected municipalities of Limpopo province. The findings across time and aggregated for all the different local municipalities investigated were similar regarding respondents’ perceptions of climate variability, adaptation strategies used and crop productivity. The perceptions revealed that respondents were aware of the reality of climate variability and its negative effects on their crop and livestock production, Agricultural productivity amongst extension and non-extension recipients was low, with minimal differences. These findings auger well for the development of common strategies to improve the effectiveness of the support for farm management including climate variability that is provided by the public agricultural extension service to the group of producers in this study to reduce the negative effects of climate variability on their crop productivity. This will eventually help to improve their food security.
13 Pages, This research was conducted to assess socio-economic factors influencing adoption of conservation agriculture in Moroto District of Uganda. The socio-economic factors, the level of conservation agriculture, and the constraints faced by the farmers were assessed. A cross-sectional research design was utilised to collect data from 80 farmers (adopters and non-adopters of conservation agriculture). Purposive random sampling was applied to select seven key informants in the two sub-counties of Katikekile and Nadunget, and four villages of Nakodet, Nakwanga, Napudes and Komare. Data were collected through personal observation, interviews, focus group discussions, and structured questionnaires. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to generate descriptive and inferential statistics for quantitative data analysis. The binary probit model was used to determine the socio-economic factors influencing adoption of conservation agriculture. The findings indicate that there was a significant influence for gender (p<0.01), but a statistically significant influence for credit and extension services (p<0.05). Finally, the adoption rate of conservation agriculture is still low given the size of land dedicated to it by most farmers. Therefore, this study recommends that government and other institutions should strengthen the agricultural extension system, provide financial support and incentives, and sensitize farmers on conservation agriculture.