Enset has a number of important characteristics that makes it a climate-smart crop, including an underground stem called corm with lateral fibrous roots, cold tolerance, drought tolerance, disease resistance except for bacterial wilt, nematode, and mealy bags on the stem, and tolerance to climate variability and change. This study was initiated to assess the perceptions of farmers on the intercropping of enset with other crops as an adaptation strategy to climate change in the kokosa district. In this study, multi-level sampling techniques were used to select 194 households, of whom 114 were non-users of intercropping with other crops and 114 were users. Data collection tools were focus group discussions, interviews with key informants, and field observations. A binary logistic regression model, descriptive statistics, and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The potential of intercropping of enset with other crops such as cabbage (30.4%), maize (20.8%), potatoes (12.8%), beans (8.8%), and peas (7.1%) is well understood based on household perceptions. The main advantages of intercropping enset with other crops over monocropping were identified by households such as saving the main crop, prevent from disease, improving soil fertility, mainly no use of chemical and source of livestock feed. Of the 14 variables included in the model, 8 significantly affect the integration of enset with other crops such as distance from home to farm, total income, farming experience, and extension services at a significance level of p<0.0), sex, farm size, family size and access to information at a significance level of p<0.05. The crops that were intercropped with enset receive organic fertilizer from the enset farm and leaves falling from the crops improve soil fertility on enset farms. Accordingly, the enset farm had a high nutrient cycle. Therefore, the government bodies are also expected to support system performance in the study area.

Keywords: staple food, herbaous perennial crop, kale intercropping, organic fertilizer.