THE EFFECTS AND COPING STRATEGIES TO DROUGHT OF RURAL SUBSISTANCE FARMERS

TA Ngabu in Chikwawa district is prone to several droughts. Drought disasters have caused extensive damages which affected many sectors of the society with agriculture in particular and this sets back development in the area. All farmers are exposed to drought but subsistence farmers are more vulnerable. Therefore, this study aimed at obtaining clear understanding of the effects and coping strategies of rural subsistent farmers to drought in this area. This was descriptive survey which employed qualitative approach. Drought conditions were assessed by analyzing rainfall data for the period of Twenty-Two years from 1996 to 2018, this monthly rainfall data was obtained from Ngabu Meteorological station. The mean and standard deviation of the rainfall was calculated and SPI analysis was used to identify dry spells and wet spells, a year was considered dry when the SPI value was less than 0 and it was considered wet when SPI value was greater than 0. Questionnaires were also administered to a sample from the study area, through interviews with households guided by the questions on the questionnaire. Focus group discussions, were used to obtain general overview of the effects of drought on subsistence farmers and also interviews with local traditional leaders. In selection of sample Multi-stage sampling technique was used given the large size of the study area. The first stage involved selecting two villages which were heavily affected by drought in the area, then purposive sampling procedure were used to select households from each of the sampled villages. Secondary information was also used to complement primary data. Primary collected data was captured and analyzed using SPSS to obtain frequency, cross-tab, as well as logistic regression analysis. The research has revealed extent to which subsistence farmers have been affected by the drought, in addition research has also found out some of coping strategies which rural subsistence farmers employed in times of drought which include food aid, drought resistance crop, remittances and irrigation.

Drought conditions were assessed by analyzing rainfall data for the period of Twenty-Two years from 1996 to 2018, this monthly rainfall data was obtained from Ngabu Meteorological station. The mean and standard deviation of the rainfall was calculated and SPI analysis was used to identify dry spells and wet spells, a year was considered dry when the SPI value was less than 0 and it was considered wet when SPI value was greater than 0. The first stage involved selecting two villages which were heavily affected by drought in the area, then purposive sampling procedure were used to select households from each of the sampled villages. The research has revealed extent to which subsistence farmers have been affected by the drought, in addition research has also found out some of coping strategies which rural subsistence farmers employed in times of drought which include food aid, drought resistance crop, remittances and irrigation.

The study was conducted in Chikwawa district specifically in TA Ngabu, situated in southern part of Malawi. Its GPS coordinates are 16o , 10o ,00 .01” south and 34o 45o 00.00” east (GeoYP, 2021). Chikwawa district generally receive unreliable rainfall ranging from aminimum of 170mm to a maximum of about 967.6mm per annum, temperature is generally high with an average minimum about 27.60C in July and maximum of about 37.60 C Chikwawa district covers an area of 4,755km2 and has population of 356,682(National statistical office, 2018). Ngabu TA has been selected considering that isone of drought prone area in Chikwawa district.

District: Chikwawa

Coordinates: -16.2153, 34.6804