Abstract:
Knowledge of strategies to improve farm household resilience to food insecurity and counter adverse weather events and poor
resource endowment is a pre-requisite for implementing solutions fitting local conditions. This paper examines subsistence
farmer knowledge of strategies to cope with food insecurity and progressive climate change in the Lower River Region of
The Gambia. The study applies survey data collected from the predominantly agricultural, poorly urbanized region in 2017 with
regard to knowledge of eleven strategies, nine strategies directly related to farm practices and two related strategies associated
with insufficient food crop production. Farmer strategy knowledge is estimated using the logit technique and identified farmer,
farm household, farm practice, and environmental characteristics and factors significantly influencing such knowledge. The
calculation of probability changes quantified the effect associated with a particular factor on knowing a strategy. Formal
education, secondary household activities, gender, government support, farm size, and income influence the knowledge of
selected strategies. Additionally, knowledge of some strategies is also associated with certain practices, e.g., planting trees.
Insights gained from the study into the factors driving illiterate, ultra-poor farmer knowledge of available strategies are of use
for multiple stakeholders helping to channel their efforts to reduce food insecurity in the studied region, The Gambia, other
regions, which share similar socioeconomic and environmental conditions
