Modeling Climate Change and its Impacts on Food Barley (HorduemvulgareL.) Production using Different Climate Change Scenariosin Lemubilbilo District, Oromia Regional State,Ethiopia

Abstract

Climate change is one of the current issues that severely impact all climate sensitive sectors like agriculture. The manifestation of climate change such as rising temperatures, increasingly erratic rainfall, and more frequent and severe floods and droughts have grave consequences on the livelihood security of smallholder farming communities, making them more vulnerable. Agriculture plays a great role in the livelihood of rural communities in many African countries. Most such countries are, however, predicted to be among the globe’s most vulnerable to climatic changes (Schlenker and Lobell, 2010; Samson et al., 2011; Morand et al., 2012). Muller et al. (2011) noted that the negative consequences of climate change are anticipated overall for Africa where over 95 % of the farmers subsist on rain-fedagriculture. In Ethiopia, agriculture is the dominant sector contributing around 50% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 85% of total employment and livelihoods. It is also the major source of food for the population and, hence, the prime contributor to food security (CEEPA, 2006). Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE, 2011) noted that climate change has the potential to hold back economic progress, or reverse the gains made in Ethiopia’s development and could exacerbate social and economic problems. It is heavily dependent on rainfall, with irrigation accounting for less than 1% of the country’s total cultivated land. Crop production is dominated by small scale subsistence farmers (about 8 million households) who practice more traditional farming, accounting for 95% of the total area under crop and more than 90% of the total agricultural output (CSA, 2011). Vulnerable agricultural systems are most prevalent in arid, semi-arid, and dry subhumid regions of the developing world, home to half of the world’s currently malnourished Abstract: Agriculture remains the main source of food and income for most rural communities in Ethiopia. Understanding the impact of climate change on crop production can help to optimize schemes and increase yields. The main aim of this study was, therefore, to modeling climate change and its impacts on food barley (horduem vulgare l.) production using different climate change scenarios in Lemu Bilbilo district, Oromia regional state, Ethiopia. Time series anomaly for temperature showed that both annual maximum and minimum temperature have increased by 0.06 oC and 0.11 oC respectively and rainfall showed slight variability during the period of 1980-2010.The projected temperature and rainfall pattern shows that an overall increasing trend in annual temperature and significant variation of monthly and seasonal rainfall from the historical period of time. Days to flowering, maturity and yield of HB1307 variety simulated by DSSAT V4.6 model was calibrated and evaluated by Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Index of agreement (IA) and coefficient of determination (R2). Therefore, RMSE, IA and R2 revealed a very nice agreement with observed data’s set. The Results indicate that food barley yield decreases on average by 22%, 24% in 2030s RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 respectively. Similarly yield decreases on average by RCP4.5 (25%) and RCP8.5 (19%) in 2050s relative to the baseline (1980-2009) due to climate change. Early sowing should be considered as an adaptation strategy for food barley under future climate.