Abstract

There is consensus that rural farmers’ livelihoodsare vulnerable to climate change. Also, literature suggests thatlocally driven adaptations are critical complementary strategiesthat can be targeted to reduce the negative effects of climatechange in the short-run. Thus far, through using a crosssectional survey sample of 200 rural farmers from the Amatholedistrict municipality of the Eastern Cape Province of SouthAfrica, the paper estimated farmers’ climate change adaptationstrategies, adaptation portfolio diversity and factors thatcondition farmers’ adoption behavior. The results revealseveral crop, livestock and non-farm based adaptationstrategies skewed in favour of crop and non-farm floral basedtechniques. The results further indicate that rural farmers ingeneral are low adopters of climate change adaptationstrategies with poor adaptation portfolio diversity. Regressionestimates reveal several socio-economic and institutional factorsas drivers of adoption and adaptation portfolio diversity worthtargeting to promote the ability of rural farmers to cope withclimate change.