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Climate change and variability have been one of the challenges to socioeconomic and environmental sustainability in the twenty-first century. Meteorological analyses of historical drought occurrences are common in East Africa, but studies devoted to its effect on land use change are yet limited. This paper aimed to assess the long-term rainfall and temperature variability and its effects on farmers' land use change in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia over the past 30-36 years using a combination of meteorological and socioeconomic data. Results show that the overall coefficient of variation for rainfall was more than 35% for rainy seasons. Out of the 36 years, total rainfall of the rainy season showed negative anomalies for about half of these years. Summer season rainfall started after the average time of onset for about 42% of the database years, and it ceased ahead of the average time of the stop for about 56% of these years. As a result of such rainfall shortage and variability, about 82% of the drought-vulnerable farmers had already changed their land use from pastoralist/agropastoralist to mixed farming while 10% have a wish to shift to other land use options in the future. Hence, future policies need to consider strategies that strengthen the adaptation capacity of farmers to climate change in East Africa.