Opoku Mensah Seth, Osei-Acheampong Bismark, Jacobs Brent, Cunningham Rebecca, Akoto Akwasi Bamfo
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
J Environ Manage. 2025 Jun;384:125598. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.125598. Epub 2025 May 5.
Efforts to promote adaptation among smallholder farmers in Ghana have yielded a substantial body of research. Despite the growing body of research on climate adaptation in Ghana, existing studies remain fragmented, lacking a comprehensive synthesis of smallholder farmers' adaptation strategies and barriers. This study makes a novel contribution by providing the first agroecology-specific synthesis of climate change adaptation strategies among Ghanaian smallholder farmers. By disaggregating findings across six ecological zones, it reveals context-specific patterns and barriers, offering an evidence base for locally tailored and transformative adaptation planning within Ghana's agricultural sector. A systematic literature review was performed to assess Ghanaian smallholder farmers' adaptation strategies and identify any existing gaps for future research. From the 497 records reviewed, we identified 61 adaptation strategies employed by smallholder farmers. These strategies were organised into two categories: on-farm strategies-agricultural intensification and extensification-and off-farm strategies-livelihood diversification and migration. Additionally, several significant gaps were identified, including limited research on the effectiveness of adaptation strategies, the role of institutions in enhancing adaptive capacity, and how different livelihood capitals are mobilized, transformed, and combined to reduce livelihood sensitivity. Further gaps include the lack of integrated vulnerability analyses of crop-livestock farming systems and insufficient multi-scale research to examine how climatic and non-climatic stressors vary and interact across scales to exacerbate the vulnerability of farming households. Our findings emphasise the need for all stakeholders to increase investment in contemporary research and sustainable development initiatives to foster transformational adaptation in Ghana's agricultural sector.
在加纳，为促进小农户适应气候变化所做的努力已产生了大量研究成果。尽管加纳关于气候适应的研究越来越多，但现有研究仍然零散，缺乏对小农户适应策略和障碍的全面综合分析。本研究通过首次对加纳小农户的气候变化适应策略进行农业生态学特定综合分析，做出了新颖的贡献。通过对六个生态区的研究结果进行分类，揭示了因地制宜的模式和障碍，为加纳农业部门制定因地制宜的变革性适应计划提供了证据基础。进行了系统的文献综述，以评估加纳小农户的适应策略，并确定未来研究中存在的差距。在审查的497条记录中，我们确定了小农户采用的61种适应策略。这些策略分为两类：农场内策略——农业集约化和粗放化——以及农场外策略——生计多样化和迁移。此外，还发现了几个重大差距，包括对适应策略有效性的研究有限、机构在增强适应能力方面的作用，以及不同生计资本如何被调动、转化和组合以降低生计敏感性。其他差距包括缺乏对农牧养殖系统的综合脆弱性分析，以及缺乏多尺度研究来考察气候和非气候压力源如何在不同尺度上变化和相互作用，从而加剧农户的脆弱性。我们的研究结果强调，所有利益相关者都需要增加对当代研究和可持续发展倡议的投资，以促进加纳农业部门的变革性适应。
