Gonan N’Guessan Brigitte-Milène ZIKÉ^1,, Mahaman Bachir SALEY², Hermann Vami N’Guessan Bi²

The aim of the study is to analyze the understanding of rainfed rice growers of climate variability in the Tiassalé department, identify the climatic risks to which rainfed rice is exposed, characterize the degree of vulnerability of rice crops, soils, and rice growers to climate variability, identify the means available to rice growers to cope with new climate variations in their area and propose new adaptation strategies to reinforce those already available. The study involved a random sample of 200 rainfed rice farmers in 20 localities in the Tiassalé department in southern Ivory Coast. The results of the study indicate that the rice growers are fully aware of the variability of the climate in their localities. This variability is reflected in the scarcity of rain, the shortening of rainy seasons, the lengthening of dry seasons, the frequency of pockets of drought during rainy seasons, and the rise in air temperature. The direct consequence of this is a fall in yields and therefore in rice growers' incomes, leading to a gradual abandonment of rice growing in favor of other, more profitable activities. This can threaten local and even national self-sufficiency in rice. Faced with the new climate conditions, rice growers have adopted various adaptation strategies, such as changing sowing and harvesting dates and diversifying their sources of crop income (food crops, industrial crops, trade, livestock, etc.). However, despite the endogenous strategies adopted, rice growers are still unable to cope effectively with the effects of climate variability on their activity. Scientific research is therefore needed to provide rainfed rice growers in the Tiassalé department with new strategies to help reduce their vulnerability and thus increase their ability to adapt to climate variability in their region

Climate variability, rainfed rice production, risks, vulnerability, adaptation strategies, Tiassalé, Ivory Coast