This study examined smallholder farmers? level of perception about climate change, source of information on climate change, types of adaptation strategies, factors influencing adaptation choices and barriers to adaptation in Eastern Hararghe Zone, Ethiopia. The surveyed farm households in the study area perceived at least one aspect of climate change primarily through their life experience. Planting trees is the major adaptation measure and 89.1 percent of the farmers took this adaptation strategy. Most farmers (96 percent) believe that deforestation is the main cause of climate change and the choice of farmers to plant trees as an adaptation strategy may be partly a mitigation strategy. However, the majority (49.6 percent) of the households employed at least one adaptation response on top of tree planting. The other adaptation strategies include: early planting, terracing, irrigation and water harvesting. The main source of information for these adaptation strategies for 58.4 percent of the respondents is from extension advice. Results of a multinomial logit model showed that non-farm income, farmer- to-farmer extension, access to credit, distance to selling markets, distance to purchasing markets, and income affect the choice of adaptation strategies. Finally, the study identified lack of information as the most important barrier to climate change adaptation. The other barriers include: lack of farm inputs, shortage of land, lack of money, lack of water and shortage of labor.

Food insecurity remains one of the major challenges in Ethiopia. There is scanty empirical evidence regarding the contribution of seasonality to household food and nutrition security. This study was conducted in eastern Ethiopia with the aim of examining seasonal household food and nutrition security and factors influencing this seasonal variation. Data were gathered from randomly selected households during pre- and post-harvest seasons. A Random Effects Generalized Least Squares (GLS) regression was employed for analysis. The result indicated considerable variation between the two seasons in terms of dietary diversity and food security. Households producing more food groups, cultivating larger size of land, having higher household income, keeping more livestock, owning cell phone, having access to cooperatives, and having access to improved drinking water as well as education were more likely to be more food secure across seasons. However, households keeping livestock in their dwelling units and households who had access to credit were negatively associated with seasonal food insecurity. Future interventions aiming at ensuring food security should pay attention to seasonality and mechanisms of improving diversified food production and household income as well as expanding education opportunities and access to cooperatives, infrastructure (mobile telephone), and sanitation.

This data article is a result of research conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers with the aim of analyzing agroecological transition and performance of agroecology in Ethiopia. It was conducted in four districts of Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities and People's (SNNP) regional states - Fedis district (East Hararghe Zone) and Miesso district (West Hararghe Zone) from the Oromia region, and Kindo Koysha district (Wolaita Zone) and Meskan district (Gurage Zone) of SNNP region. The rationale behind generating this dataset lies on the fact that there is scanty empirical evidence on the multidimensional performance of agroecology in the country. Available evidence only provides data on limited indicators of sustainability. Hence, there is a lack of comprehensive data on the economic, environmental and social indicators of sustainability and agroecological transition in the context of smallholder farming systems in the country. To fill this gap, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) commissioned a consultancy project that employed the Tool for Agroecological Performance Evaluation (TAPE) to assess several dimensions and indicators of agroecological transitions and generate globally comparable data. A random sample of 619 farms were selected from 12 Kebeles (i.e., the lowest administrative unit), and trained enumerators gathered primary data based on a modified TAPE questionnaire using Kobo Toolbox. Participation of smallholders was on a voluntary basis and informed consent was obtained from the respondents. The survey questionnaire contained information on basic socio-economic and demographic characteristics, access to services and infrastructure, livelihood and Income-Generating Activities (IGAs), social and ecological indicators. Data on the 10 elements of agroecology was also collected. The collected data were entered into a STATA software, cleaned and analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. The outputs were summarized in Tables, Charts and Graphs. Since the data contained in this data article are disaggregated by study district, categories of agroecological transition, production typology and land size groups, this can foster the promotion of specific projects and programs that can address expressed needs of smallholder farmers. It can also facilitate agro-ecological based implementation of development interventions to encourage agroecological transition, sustainable development and food systems. The dataset can also enable researchers, practitioners and other decision-makers to make comparative analysis on the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability. The analyzed data is provided in this data article. The raw data used to prepare figures is provided as a supplementary material. A copy of the questionnaire, raw dataset, and description of variables are available online on Mendeley Data.