Gender Based Vulnerability Analysis of Rural Smallholder Farming Households to Climate Change Variability in Four Major Tobacco Growing Provinces of Zimbabwe

The study investigated the extent to which there was a difference in the vulnerability of male and female smallholder tobacco farmers to climate change (CC); and assessed farmers’ exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity to climate change and variability using an index-based approach. Tobacco Sales Floor (TSF), Boka Tobacco Floors (BTF), and Premier Tobacco Auction Floor (PTAF), and the data was collected between March and July 2024 in Harare. We collected primary data from tobacco growing provinces of Manicaland (MN, 115 respondents), Mashonaland Central (MC,195), Mashonaland East (ME, 195), and Mashonaland West (MW, 195) were selected at random distributed by gender as 36% being women and 64% being male. Both Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) and the Livelihood Vulnerability Index and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (LVI-IPCC) we employed to achieve their study. The optimal value of the LVI is between 0 (least vulnerable) and 1 (most vulnerable), while the IPCC index varies between minus one (-1) (least vulnerable) to positive one (+1) (most vulnerable). Overall LVI shows that female headed households (FHH) were more vulnerable to climate change (CC) with an index of 0.528 when compared to male headed households (MHH). Looking at the seven sub-components, FHH’s vulnerability was high socio-demographic profile [0.489 (FHH) versus 0.473 (MHH)]; food [0.515 (FHH) versus 0.502 (MHH)]; social networks [0.661 (FHH) versus 0.622 (MHH); health [0.686 (FHH) versus 0.616 (MHH) and water [0.415 (FHH) versus 0.212 (MHH). On the other hand, MHH were more vulnerable to CC in the category of livelihood strategies [0.448 (MHH) versus 0.413 (FHH)]; and natural disasters and climate variability [0.526 MHH) versus 0.516 (FHH)]. According to the overall calculated LVIIPCC, households headed by women were more vulnerable to climatic variability and change (LVIIPCC = -0.005) than households headed by men (LVIIPCC = 0.007). In terms of sub-components, households headed by women (CFIExposure=0.526) were more vulnerable with regards to exposure when compared to male-headed households (CFIExposure= 0.516). Compared to male-headed families (CFISensitivity = 0.458), female-headed households (CFISensitivity = 0.527) were more sensitive to climate change and variability. When it comes to adaptable capacities, FHH (CFIadaptive capacity =0.510) were more vulnerable than male-headed households MHH (CFIadaptive capacity=0.525). When reading the adaptive CFI, the implication is that the higher the index is, the higher the level of adaptive capacity of a given household the lower their vulnerability to climate change. The study's recommendations, based on these findings, suggest that women should be given precedence in ongoing and new climate change and agriculture intervention projects. They should also be empowered to engage in other income-generating activities by providing financial resources, which will help them diversify their sources of income and increase their resilience to climate change and variability.