Bridging Traditional knowledge and Agricultural Policy in Climate Change Adaptation in Ghana

Baidoo, Anastasia Ago (2025) Bridging Traditional knowledge and Agricultural Policy in Climate Change Adaptation in Ghana. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

Climate change has been a global concern over the past decade, prompting the need for coordinated policies at international, national, and local levels to both mitigate its effects and support adaptation. In Africa, smallholder farmers are already adjusting to the environmental changes brought about by climate change. However, the accelerating impacts of human-induced climate change widely documented in numerous studies continue to threaten rain-fed agriculture, worsening hunger and food insecurity in developing countries. The way smallholder farmers perceive climate change significantly influences their farming practices. Individuals’ perceptions of their environment often shape their responses to it, influencing whether they will adopt modern technologies and adaptive techniques aimed at enhancing resilience and coping capacity. Mainstreaming has been proposed as a strategy for governments to integrate traditional knowledge with scientific approaches in climate change adaptation policies. Increasingly, it is recognized that scientific models alone are insufficient for effective adaptation. Instead, strategies must be tailored to local contexts, promoting the co-production of knowledge from both traditional and scientific sources. This fosters social learning and informs policy actions that can better support the resilience of local systems to climate impacts. This study aimed to identify and compile the strategies used by crop farmers to adapt to climatic variabilities, with a focus on traditional knowledge, its influence on farming practices, and its integration with scientific methods for policy action. Specifically, the study sought to assess the extent of farmers’ awareness of climate variabilities and to document adaptation strategies rooted in traditional knowledge. It also examined the growing trend of combining traditional and scientific approaches as a regular practice among farmers. Additionally, the study explored efforts to mainstream traditional knowledge into policy at both the district and national levels and identify the barriers to integration and propose potential solutions. The study covered four districts from two agro-ecological zones in northern Ghana using a mixed-method approach. Data collection included questionnaires, focus group discussions and interviews. Two logistic regression models were used to determine factors influencing farmers' choices in adopting both traditional and scientific adaptation strategies. In total, 687 participants were engaged, including smallholder farmers, elders, local NGO representatives and policymakers at both local and national level. A major finding was the seemingly gradual decline in appeal of traditional knowledge, largely due to fast-eroding of nature-based adaptation practices by climate related disruptions rendering them less effective or a lack of awareness of the full benefits of some techniques practiced. The findings also showed that farmers' perception on changes in weather, status of household head, availability of crop techniques, and access to weather information positively influence farmers' decisions on adaptation practices. Conversely, factors such as the level of education, number of plots, gender, agro-ecological zone, number of crops grown and number of years in farming showed a negative influence on adaptation decisions. Farmers used mixed cropping, various crop technologies (early-maturing, disease-resistant, pest-resistant, and drought-resistant varieties), and shifting cultivation in crop management practices. For water conservation, techniques such as mulching, mound-making, and bunding were applied. However, bunding and mound-making are gradually becoming less common due to land clearing methods that make their manual constructions unsuitable. Farmers were also changing their cropping systems, changing planting dates making use of weather information obtained by either traditional prediction or scientific weather (often delivered in local languages via radio or television). The findings also show that increasing input costs and declining yields are making farmers more vulnerable to debt. Furthermore, the study identified a lack of political will, lack of resources, and limited capacity at the local level as the major barriers to mainstreaming smallholder farmers’ traditional knowledge into policy. The study concludes that mainstreaming traditional knowledge into agricultural policy could enhance the resilience of smallholder farming systems. Policymakers agreed that for adaptation policies to be relevant and content-specific, they must be developed using bottom–up approaches. Although traditional knowledge seems to be dwindling, partly due to the fast rate at which climate impact erodes evidence-based learning locally, it still holds potential as a basis for targeted agro-ecological education and locally relevant climate adaptation strategies. The study recommends further research into how local policy actors can create opportunities for co-producing knowledge through collaborative partnerships involving research institutions, agricultural extension services, local authorities, and community members. By fostering social learning in these partnerships, local adaptation policies and actions can be better informed, context-specific, and more effective.