However, the capacity to adapt can influence how climate change affects individuals, communities, regions, countries and the global population.The potential to adjust in order to minimize negative impacts and maximize any benefits from climate change is known as adaptive capacity . As speculated by Lemke dry regions will become even drier while wet ones will receive more rains. Climate change affects every region but the degree and nature of impacts resulting from the phenomenon will differ from region to region and will depend on the capacity of the different regionsto adapt to the changes. Climate change adaptation is an understanding of how individuals, groups and natural systems prepare for and respond to changes in climate or their environment to reduce vulnerability.
It is the adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climate stimuli or their effects to moderate harm and increase benefits from available opportunities . Climate change adaptation in this study involve staking action to minimize the impacts of weather variation while exploring new openings that may be beneficial. The type of adaptation measures adopted depends on the nature and extent of impacts, social resilience and economic capacity of the region to deal with the observed and expected changes. Increasing the capacity to adapt reduces vulnerability to the effects and a successful adaptation can reduce vulnerability by building on and strengthening existing strategies.Developed and developing countries alike are working hard to find solutions to the effects of climate change,as the impacts vary in extent and nature. In order to address the resulting impacts, adaption practices should lay emphasis on community interest to encourage sustainable development. It is suggested that adaptation strategies will be more successful if they are identified and presented to local users for vetting to ensure their consistency with local priorities, norms, goals and institutions.
It recognizes the fact that environmental knowledge and resilience to climate change lay within societies and cultures. Furthermore, an understanding of how communities cope with environmental changes is important when developing community-based adaptation projects to mitigate the effects of climate change for the local farmers and their families. The goal of community-based adaptation is to increase climate change resilience of communities by enhancing their capacity to cope with climate related issues such as less predictable rainfall patterns, frequent droughts, stronger heat wave, invasion of diseases and weather hazards of unprecedented intensity . Staying informed about climate change and supporting efforts to slow its progress are things necessary to be done. The climate is already changing because of the existing build-up of GHGs in the atmosphere, therefore it is important to prepared for and adapt to those changes.
While actions now to reduce emissions is critical, the existing build-up of GHG concentrations means that some effects of climate change are inevitable in this and coming decades and planning must start now on adapting families,production processes, economy and the society to these changes.Strategies aimed at adapting crop farming to climate change include adjusting planting and harvest dates,changing varieties grown, increasing water, fertilizer, herbicide and pesticide use and enhancing drainage systems. Changes in land-use and in crop and livestock management practices will have to take place, such as change in cultivated land area, changing crop and animal types, rearing animal species that can withstand higher thermal changes and growing crops that are drought and flood tolerant, change in farm siting, use of irrigation and improved fertilizer use efficiency to counter the effects of droughts and low soil fertility conditions due to leaching and erosion resulting from coastal flooding, improved control mechanisms for insect pests and diseases associated with weather change improvement in soil management practices to reduce surface runoff and soil erosion establishment and creation of food grain reserves at farm and community levels for safe-keeping and storage of harvested produce, and intercropping arable crops with trees to benefit from improved micro-climate as well as tree products and services .
Others include diversifying into multiple and mixed crop-livestock systems, switching from crop to livestock farming, switching from fishing to fish farming, switching from rain-fed to irrigated farming and making ridges across farms . Some suggested adaptation practices also includes construction of foot-bridges across road tracks, raising of barriers/dikes in response to sea level rise/flood, use of mulching material for crops and shades for animal houses to reduce heat, using improved varieties/breeds to ensure survival of cultivated and reared crops and animals,switching to mechanized farming to reduce hard labour as well as the involvement of technology in production processes.