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Abstract
The study was aimed at identifying key factors that enhance resilience to prolonged dry
spells and droughts among smallholder farmers in Chipoka Extension Planning Area
(EPA) in the lakeshore district of Salima. The study area was selected because it
experiences dry spells on a regular basis. The major contribution of this study is the
construction of the Drought Resilience Index (DRI), which was used as a measure of
drought resilience, and its use to determine the effect of resilience on the welfare of the
farming families. Realising that smallholder farmers are not passive but active in
responding to events that threaten their livelihoods, the study was aimed at identifying
how factors such as household assets, social capital, size of land held by the farming
household, among other factors help the farmers to absorb effects resulting from the
effects of prolonged dry spells and droughts. The analytical framework used in the
study assumed that resilience of a given household at a given time depends primarily
on the options available to that household for making a living, which in turn affect the
response of the household to adverse occurrences. Households whose options are stable
and have a high adaptive capacity are said to be more resilient than those whose options
are unstable and have less adaptive capacity. The study used principal component
analysis (PCA) to reduce changes in actual household consumption and the number of
months a household remains with food in normal and drought years to come up with
the drought resilience index (DRI). To capture the effect of drought on farmers’ welfare,
a stochastic frontier production function was estimated with output as the dependent
variable and the drought resilience index among the explanatory variables. Results of
the study reveal that most households in Chipoka were not resilient to effects of dry
spells and that factors such as age of the household head, size of the farm family, land
holding size, number of immediate family members living outside the household are
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some of the factors that affect the resilience of farming households. The study also
found that households that were resilient to dry spells were likely to have improved
farm household welfare. The study recommends promotion of productivity enhancing
technologies. Another recommendation calls for promotion of drought resistant crops
and diversification into off-farm economic activities. For state and non-state actors
working in the study area, a recommendation is made that they must target their aid
efficiently to achieve the intended purpose in enhancing resilience.