1. Introduction
Change in the global energy budget has been observed and is expected to exhibit natural variations [
1]. The recent food crisis in West Africa has revealed that this part of Africa is highly vulnerable to climate variability and change [
2]. With heavy reliance on rainfed agriculture, Africa is believed to be one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change [
3]. Droughts of the 1970s and 1980s have put the West African Sahel region in the spotlight of environmental and climate change-related research [
4]. The Gambia, due to its location at the southern fringe of the Sahara desert where rainfall is irregular and unpredictable, is particularly prone to drought. In The Gambia, agriculture employs approximately 75% of the labor force and contributes to 33% of the GDP. Agriculture is the second largest sector in the economy [
5]. However, the recurrent erratic and uneven rainfall distribution in the country has resulted in low crop yield and production, sometimes causing food shortage in the country [
6]. In 2006, for instance, it was reported that 46% of rural households fell below the food poverty line [
7]. The food shortage continued from 2008 to 2013 following the drastic fall in agricultural production caused by the severe drought crises that affected the country [
7]. Smallholder farmers were the most affected due to their high sensitivity and low adaptive capacity [
8,
9]. Simulation models such as DSSAT(Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer) and APSIM(Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator) showed that agricultural production, especially maize production, was expected to be dramatically reduced by the year 2055 if the current trend of the climate variability is maintained [
10].
Farmers’ perception plays a key role in the adoption of innovative technology [
11,
12]. Perceptions of the evolution of climate variables vary across different climatic zones in Africa [
13,
14]. A study conducted in southwestern Burkina Faso revealed that farmers’ awareness of the ongoing climate and environment change depends on their experienced historical weather and climate [
15]. In Senegal and Kenya, for example, most farmers perceived variations in the frequency of drought events [
16]. In the savanna zone of Senegal, farmers associate the effects of climate variability with the occurrence of violent winds and occasional storms [
17,
18]. In the Central plateau of Burkina Faso, farmers perceived a decrease in the average annual rainfall and the number of heavy rains [
4]. In Ghana and Niger, farmers’ perceptions are in line with meteorological data [
16]. Different factors affect farmers’ perception and adaptation to climate change [
13], including factors that are not related to weather or environment but grounded on local social dynamics and sense-making around them [
17]. Factors that influence farmers’ perception may include farm size, access to training, household size, and membership of farmer-based organizations [
19]. For instance, flood events are found to have an impact on people’s perception about climate change [
20]. In some studies, farmers’ perceptions corroborate observed meteorological data [
21,
22], whereas others contradict this view [
18].
Most studies on farmers’ perception of climate variability compare their findings with empirical meteorological data and, at times, have linked it to the adaptation practices used by farmers (e.g., [
23,
24]). Little attention has been paid to how farmers perceive their own exposure (vulnerability) to perceived climatic changes and possible losses that result from it (severity). Moreover, few studies have been conducted on farmers’ preferences of the available adaptation measures in terms of cost and effectiveness. Until recently, few studies in this field have been published on The Gambia [
9]. Most of these studies such as Jallow et al. [
25] and Yaffa [
9] did not look at farmers’ perception of climate change as a threat that may increase their own vulnerability. Indeed, most studies focused on the North Bank Region, which is the driest zone of the country. The Central River Region (CRR), which is considered as the “food basket” of The Gambia is a relevant location for this study as it could be an important contribution to the farmers’ resilience building for improved food productivity and poverty alleviation. The present study specifically responds to the questions: (i) what is the farmers’ perceived trend of climate variability? (ii) what are the adaptation measures used by farmers? (iii) what is the linkage between the perceived trend and the use of adaptation measures?
4. Discussion
Regarding farmers’ perception of extreme weather events and production factors, the relatively low standard deviation of “heat” clearly indicates that the majority of the respondents have almost the same perception about this event. However, the relatively high standard deviation of “longer precipitation period” and “length of growing season” indicates that the majority of the respondents have different opinions on those parameters. These differences in the perception may be due to the variation of the rainfall distribution across the study area. Farmers‘ perception of rainfall trends is usually linked to their farm yield. Empirical data collected in The Gambia has shown that, in general, precipitation has decreased, the length of the rainy season has decreased, and the frequency of extreme weather events such as drought and dust has increased during the past 50 years [
31].
The difference of perceptions may be explained by the fact that farmers‘ perceptions of climate change are linked with their crop–climate interaction knowledge and the production outcomes associated with the new change [
32]. Farmers’ perceptions of climate change and variability are consistent with empirical data and findings observed by others authors. Dhanya and Ramachandran [
33] found that in India, farmers’ perceptions are in accordance with trend analysis done using meteorological variables. Sanfo et al. [
34] found that farmers’ perception is only marginally consistent with empirical weather data in a similar study conducted in Burkina Faso.
The use of chemical fertilizers is revealed to be the farmers’ stated preferred adaptation measure. This is in line with the works from Eguavoen and Wahren [
35] who conducted a study on climate change adaptation in the South-West Region of Burkina Faso. A study conducted in Bangladesh on the importance of the adaptation method according to the farmers, ranked irrigation first, which is included in water conservation techniques in this study [
36].
Referring to the cost and effectiveness, farmers have stated their preference for the use of improved crop varieties, which was ranked first. However, selecting the use of chemical fertilizers as their preference does not mean that farmers are not rational. For them, the chemical fertilizers should be applied depending on whether you are using improved varieties, practicing crop rotation, using water conservation, and water diversion systems. One bag (50 kg) of chemical fertilizer, if available, can be used for hectares, whereas natural fertilizers require larger quantities of use. Some farmers also mentioned that natural fertilizers sometimes bring about pests and diseases. For them, the chemical fertilizers are the best if a farmer can afford the cost. The only difficulties that farmers encountered with the use of chemical fertilizers are their unavailability, the expense, and the lack of knowledge on when and how to apply it.
Surprisingly, sociodemographic factors such as annual income did not exhibit any statically significant influence on the implementation of chemical fertilizers. Hassan and Nhemachena [
37] did not find any significant and clear relationship between gender and adoption of adaptation strategies. A study conducted in the Central-Northern part of Burkina Faso showed that sociodemographic factors are not important in farmers’ adoption of adaptation measures [
38]. However, some authors, such as Burton et al. [
39], Dolisca et al. [
40], found that gender has an influence in farmers’ adoption of natural resource management practices. Our study revealed that smallholder farmers are likely to apply chemical fertilizers than those holding large-scale croplands. When the farm size is big, farmers are not able to cover the whole farm with chemical fertilizers. During the FGD, farmers mentioned that they only apply chemical fertilizers to a portion of their farm or for a specific crop, rather than on the whole farm. Perception variables significantly affect the implementation of chemical fertilizers. Farmers respond to the perceived change. A study conducted in Kenya showed that 85% of farmers responded to climate variability [
24] by using irrigation systems, water harvesting, agro-forestry, early maturing, drought- and pest-tolerant crop varieties, and improved livestock marketing. In this study, crop rotation was the most implemented adaptation measure. This can be explained by the fact that the crop rotation system is easy to practice. Regarding vulnerability and severity, respondents considered the dryness as the main threat to their farming activities and perceived its consequences as the most severe in term of losses. Similarly, a study conducted in Ghana found that farmers believe their farms are extremely vulnerable to rainfall and drought variation [
35]. Since the mean of withstanding flooding is 3.8, which is less than the mean of withstanding drought (3.3), most of the respondents feel that they can cope with flooding better than drought.
According to the respondents, the crop rotation system is very productive but requires an abundance of land. For most farmers, the land is available; the only difficulty is the clearance of the land. Water conservation was the least implemented. This may be explained by the nondiversification of water conservation techniques. In fact, farmers from the study area claimed during the transect walk to only collect water from the river for their rice field through tidal or pumping systems. They do not harvest or conserve the rainwater for upland fields. Therefore, only places that are close to rivers and not affected by the salt intrusion are suitable for this cropping technique. There is also the cost associated with current water conservation techniques, which is not always affordable for most farmers. The cost was found to be a significant barrier to farmers’ adoption of climate change adaptation measures [
41,
42]. The correlation analysis showed a significant relationship between some perception variables and farmer-stated implementation of the adaptation measures. The result of the binary logistic regression supports the previous statement. The result further shows that perception variables significantly affect the implementation of chemical fertilizers. Interestingly, it shows that farmers do not apply chemical fertilizers to overcome longer periods of drought or insufficient rainfall. They only apply it when they expect favorable weather conditions so that they will improve their productivity. Similar studies have found that farmers’ perception of climate change can determine their adaptation options [
41,
43].
5. Conclusions
Farmers in the CRR perceive changes in climate patterns. In general, they perceived an increase in the average annual temperature, extreme weather events such as drought and flood, and a decrease of the annual average precipitation and production factors such as length of growing season and quality of soil structure. Farmers perceived that they are vulnerable to both the evolution of climatic factors and extreme weather events. Drought was perceived by farmers as the most severe in terms of loss associated. Farmers take measures to deal with the changing climate among which the most implemented are the use of chemical fertilizers, natural fertilizers, improved varieties, and crop rotation. The use of chemical fertilizers was stated by farmers as the preferred adaptation measure. Farmers’ perceptions of climate variability are significantly correlated with their adoption of adaptation measures. Some perception variables significantly influence the implementation of chemical fertilizers. The study suggested that policy makers should promote and subsidize the use of natural fertilizers which is not preferred by the farmers but is believed to be environmental friendly. Natural fertilizers should be promoted and be made available through practices such as crop–livestock integration systems. Furthermore, drought-tolerant crops should be made available at affordable prices to farmers. In addition, climate smart agriculture techniques such as the timely production and use of downscaled weather and climate information services (WCIS) should be promoted. Innovative WCIS dissemination channels (e.g., SMS, interactive voice response (IVR), and social media (WhatsApp and Facebook)) must be developed to reach farmers. Furthermore, whether index-based insurance facilities in the cropping system that compensates farmers affected by climate chocks could be explored. The present study has some limitations. The analysis was done globally on the entire selected communities without analyzing differences between the communities. The study further explores the relationship between farmers’ perception of climate change and their stated adaptation measures but did not make use of theories. Future studies should elaborate more on this by using behavioral theories, such as the protection motivation theory, to further analyze the link between perception and implementation variables.