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This study aimed to understand feeding strategies used by small ruminant farmers to cope with climatic change in the five contrasting agroecological zones (AEZ) of the Benin Republic and to identify the determinants of adopting these strategies. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to conduct interviews with 400 smallholder farmers in the rural areas of Benin. Data was collected on production system characteristics, farmers’ perception of climatic changes' impacts on livestock production, and their coping strategies. Cross tabulations with Chi2 statistic and the non-parametric Kruskal Wallis test were used to compare farmers’ perceptions and coping strategies between the five AEZ. Then, the binomial logistic regression was used to identify determinants of using a particular adaptive feeding strategy. The farmers perceived climatic changes as rainfall delays, increasing rainfall, less frequent drought periods during the rainy season, no change in sunshine duration, and no change in temperature. These changes negatively affected grassland biomass production (86.3 %, 86.3 % and 77.5 % of farmers in South Borgou, Plateau, Atacora chain AEZ, respectively) and water availability (100 %, 93.7 %, and 85 % of farmers in Oueme Valley, Plateau and Mekrou-penjari AEZ, respectively). Consequently, farmers mentioned decreased animal growth (58.8 % and 45 % of farmers in Plateau and South Borgou AEZ, respectively) and increased animal mortalities (43.8 % in Plateau AEZ). Farmers' current and future coping strategies varied significantly (p |
