Household Responses to Drought in Fentale Pastoral Woreda of Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Fentale pastoralists have been undertaking a set of responses to mitigate the adverse effects of the present day severe recurrent drought on the livelihood sources of the households. This study was conducted to investigate responses that are undertaken to drought by households in Fentale pastoral woreda of Oromia regional state in Ethiopia. A household survey was conducted with 134 households complemented by interviews with informants and with in-depth focus group discussion. The results indicate that households have developed various response mechanisms to deal with the challenges of the severe droughts through pastoral and non pastoral activities. An extent of household responses towards both pastoral and non pastoral activities are varied, in which the household characteristics, specifically, wealth in terms of livestock holding is the decisive factors for the engagement of the household in any one or more of a set of productive activities/response mechanisms. The extent of households' mobility and herd diversification has increased. In addition, households have started to partly practice crop cultivation. Other non-pastoral activities such as agriculture, daily labour, petty trade, fuel wood collection and charcoal selling contributed to about 35% of the total household income.