Land Use Pattern, Climate Change, and Its Implication for Food Security in Ethiopia: A Review

Abstract

Climate change is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the world today. In Africa, a continent which is and still remains vulnerable to the impact of climate change, the effects cannot be overemphasized in view of the already existing pathetic conditions of most developing countries in Africa. In Ethiopia, 85% of the population is directly supported by agricultural economy. However the productivity of the economy is threatened by land use changes and unsustainable land management practices which had impacted seriously on Ethiopia’s rich biodiversity, crop production and livestock grazing lands. While Ethiopia has always suffered from climatic variability like droughts and consequently food shortage and famine, climate change is set to make the lives of the poorest even harder. Climate change has the potential to adversely affect net farm revenues of small holders with increasing land fragmentation due to population growth translating to worsening food security situations. Since food security brings in additional socio-economics, geographical and political factors, focusing on measures of vulnerability, adaptation options and the development of adaptive capacity to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change in the rural areas of Ethiopia, this paper therefore reviewed the effect of climate change on land use pattern and the implication for food security in Ethiopia.

Key words: Climate change, Land use pattern, and Food security.