Authors: Fafa Oggo Cham, Prof. Iyabode Comfort Alemede
, Dr. Arss Secka
,
Dr. Sidat Yaffa
, Mamma Sawanneh |
Abstract: Most research works on the impact of the climate variability on livestock health are knowledge
of scientific scholars. This paper aimed at determining cattle owners' perception on the impact of
climate variability on cattle health, especially with intent to compare views by gender. The study
was conducted in the Upper River Region of The Gambia, and face-to-face individual
questionnaire were administered to 187 respondents from three out of the seven districts of the
Region. In addition, six focused group discussions (3 for men and 3 for women) were separately
held with the intent of triangulating the information received from individual respondents.
Participatory rural appraisal tools including pairwise ranking and matrix scoring were employed.
Frequency analysis and Pearson Chi-Square test were generated for all question statements,
setting significance at the standard p value < 0.05. The category sex was used as dependent
variable on questions relating to perception, impact and adaptation and where there were
association, a one-way ANOVA test with Turkey HSD Post Hoc analysis carried out to establish
significant difference between the means. Although there was no gender effect on all questions
relating to trend of climate variables, there were significant gender relationships with most of the
question concerning climate variability impact and adaptation. Unfortunately, female cattle
owners were more or less disadvantage in all cases. Thus, there is the need for all interventions
aimed at minimising climate variability impacts to be gender sensitive. There is also the need to
massively conduct climate variability awareness campaigns. |