Paper Title
CONTRIBUTION OF INCOME DIVERSIFICATION STRATEGIES TO SMALLHOLDER FARMERS’ CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION IN THE UPPER EAST REGION, GHANA

Abstract
Abstract - In remote and climate change-vulnerable areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, income diversification strategies have been accepted as insurance against food insecurity and climate vulnerability.Although income diversification is widely known for stabilizing smallholder farmers' livelihoods in the Upper East Region, it is not yet clear how income diversification contributes to climate adaptation for smallholder farmers. For this reason, the objective of this paper is to examine the implication of income diversification strategies to smallholder farmers' climate adaptation in the Upper East Region of Ghana, one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change impacts. We conducted a questionnaire survey among 360 farm households in the study area. We found that the respondents were engaged in some type of non-farm/off-farm activities, and ecosystem services including small-scale mining, livestock rearing, food sale, firewood selling, game hunting, artisanry, remittance, and petty trade. Also, further findings indicated that small-scale mining (39%), livestock rearing (34%), remittance (29%), and petty trade (41%) contribute the highest to their climate adaptation.We also used the Simpson Diversity Index to quantify the diversity level of the respondents’ income sources. The result showed that the average income diversification strategy of the study region was 0.5 out of 1. This means that on average, households diversify more income sources to their climate adaptation. Our correlation analysis revealed that age, educational background, farm experience, and farm size, significantly influenced respondents’ decision to diversify income sources for climate adaptation. Providing sensitization to household members would provide an opportunity to diversify higher income-generating activities to contribute to climate adaptation. Keywords - Climate Change Adaptation; Ghana; Income Diversification; Smallholder Farmers; UPPER East REGION