Farmers’ risk preferences and their climate change adaptation strategies in the Yongqiao District,China

Farmers’ risk preferences play an important role in agricultural production decisions. This study characterizes risk preferences among farmers in Yongqiao and determines how these risk preferences are related to their choices regarding climate change adaptation strategies. We find that most farmers in the study area were aware of climate change. They were taking measures to protect their livelihoods against perceived changes to the local climate. The risk experiment result shows that the representative subject was risk averse, and women were more risk averse than men. The relationships between farmers’ risk preferences and different climate change adaptation choices were different. Farmers’ risk aversion was negatively and significantly related with adaptation strategies on planting new crop varieties and adopting new technology, but it had a significantly positive effect on purchasing weather index crop insurance. The results also indicate that the level of education, farming experience, farm size, household income and perception of climate change impacts influence farmers’ adaptation decisions.     

Does social capital matter in climate change adaptation? A lesson from agricultural sector in Yogyakarta,Indonesia

Climate change increases the vulnerability of agricultural sector due to the increasing threat from pest attacks. Mitigation of a threat that results from climate change requires adaptation strategies. This study investigates farmers’ willingness to participate in the process of climate change adaptation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia; particularly in facing the increasing risk of pest attacks. Using a logistic regression model, we tested the impacts of social capital on farmers’ willingness to participate. The results showed that 70% of farmers were willing to contribute financially to the adaptation process. This participation was positively correlated with high social capital, which consists of high level of trust, community engagement, and personal relations with people in other villages. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the potential roles of social capital in the process of climate change adaptation in agricultural sector.     

Understanding the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among smallholder farmers: Evidence from land reform beneficiaries in South Africa

Climatic change has a negative impact on people’s livelihoods, agriculture, freshwater supply and other natural resources that are important for human survival. Therefore, understanding how rural smallholder farmers perceive climate change, climate variability, and factors that influence their choices would facilitate a better understanding of how these farmers adapt to the negative impacts of climate change. A Zero-inflated double hurdle model was employed to estimate the factors influencing farmers’ adoption of adaptation strategies and intensity of adoption at the household level in South Africa. Different socioeconomic factors such as gender, age, and experience in crop farming, institutional factors like access to extension services, and access to climate change information significantly influenced the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among beneficiaries of land reform in South Africa. Concerning intensity of adoption, age, educational level, farming experience, on-farm training, off-farm income, access to information through ICT and locational variables are the significant determinants of intensity of adaptation strategies. Thus, education attainment, non-farm employment, farming experience are significant incentives to enhance smallholder farmers' adaptive capacity through the adoption of many adaptation approaches. This study therefore concluded that farm-level policy efforts that aim to improve rural development should focus on farmers’ education, on-farm demonstration and non-farm employment opportunities that seek to engage the farmers, particularly during the off-cropping season. The income from non-farm employment can be plough-back into farm operations such as the adoption of soil and water conservation, use of improved planting varieties, insurance, among others to mitigate climate variability and subsequently increase productivity. Policies and investment strategies of the government should be geared towards supporting education, providing on-farm demonstration trainings, and disseminating information about climate change adaptation strategies, particularly for smallholder farmers in the country. Thus, the government, stakeholders, and donor agencies must provide capacity-building innovations around the agricultural extension system and education on climate change using information and communication technologies.     

How adjustments in land use patterns contribute to drought risk adaptation in a changing climate—A case study in China

In the context of climate change, adaptation to climatic extremes, such as drought, has attracted worldwide attention, yet many practical adaptation strategies need to be examined at the local level. Based on a case study of the village of Beidian, located in a drought-prone region in northern China, this study demonstrates that when faced with multiple pressures of regional climate change, drought risk and rural poverty, reasonable adjustments in land use patterns can serve as an effective adaptation strategy in the agricultural sector. We used household questionnaires, in-depth interviews with village managers, and land use surveys at the farming plot level to quantify the relationship between land use change and drought mitigation effects. Our findings indicate that in the past decade, the farming practices in Beidian have transformed from a complete reliance on the winter wheat–summer corn rotation to a new diversified mode of apple as the main crop and corn and coarse cereals as the subsidiary crops. The current farming mode is proven to possess a stronger adaptive capacity to drought due to its higher water-saving efficiency and economic benefit, which facilitates rural poverty reduction and socio-economic development. This study presents a feasible approach to address adaptation strategies at the local level, which provides policymakers with information on how to best support farm-level adaptation and to reduce farmers’ vulnerability to climatic extremes within the broader context of climate change.     

The adoption and impact of engineering‐type measures to address climate change: evidence from the major grain‐producing areas in China

Employing an endogenous switching regression model, we investigate the drivers underlying the adaptations made by farm households and their impacts on crop net incomes for adopters and nonadopters, based on a large panel survey data set across the major grain‐producing provinces in China. The results show that: (i) access to public climate information and technical or physical support increases the likelihood that farmers adapt to climate change by undertaking irrigation and/or drainage measures; and (ii) decisions to adapt increased crop yield, but they did not significantly increase crop profit margins. This point appears to have been ignored by previous studies. Based on these new empirical results, the paper suggests that government should continue to provide climate information and various types of supports to improve farmers’ adaptation abilities and help to reduce the levels of factor input by, for example, substituting organic for chemical fertiliser inputs. Such government‐led policies should be supported alongside the implementation of domestic agricultural supply‐side reform.     

Adaptation strategies to climatic variability: A case study of small-scale farmers in rural Mexico

Climate change is predicted to have major consequences for small-scale farmers in the developing rural areas of the world. Rural areas, nonetheless, harbor opportunities to mitigate global climate changes. Identification of innovative adaptation strategies used by small-scale farmers, therefore, is crucial in order to understand the extent of their implications. This paper identifies the relationships between livelihood units and landscapes that they depend upon, in a small-scale farm community. It examines their experiences of increasing climatic variability, and how the different groups in the community are adapting to it. The study was conducted in a typical rural ejido community on the Pacific coast of Mexico (Ejido Ticuiz), where a detailed socio-cultural profile was obtained by means of semi-structured interviews. In the study area we encountered a range of individual and community-based adaptation strategies, built on farmers’ recognition of the different types of landscapes which supply goods and benefits. Small-scale farmers have used their landscape diversity to build adaptation strategies to guarantee the supply of goods and benefits to cope with uncertain of climate events. Households rather than individuals or the community as an institution were depicted as the core socio-cultural group for better understanding of patterns, behavior and aspirations related to climate change adaptation at local level. The adaptation capacities of rural communities could be significantly strengthened if political, financial and institutional support is targeted at households rather than at individuals or the community level only.     

How smallholder farmers adapt to agricultural drought in a changing climate: A case study in southern China

Although the adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers to climate change and its attendant hazards have attracted widespread attention, the quantitative detection and evaluation of their adaptive behaviors remains a difficult task that deserves further study. This article describes an empirical case study performed in southern China to examine the adaptation strategies of paddy farmers to agricultural drought. We collected first-hand data through household questionnaires, in-depth interviews with local managers, and farm-level land-use surveys. The effectiveness of the adaptation approaches of the farmers was assessed in terms of the ecological, economic, and social benefits. Our findings indicate that over the past three decades, when confronted with recurrent seasonal drought in a warming climate, farmers have gradually abandoned the double-cropping rice production and transformed their cropping patterns into a new diversified mode of “Rice-Cole, rice, cotton, seedling nursery, and coarse cereals”. Current farming practice reduces the vulnerability of local agriculture to drought, and allows farmers to diversify and improve their incomes, which contributes to enhanced resilience and adaptability to drought. However, the autonomous adaptation of farmers may primarily serve their interests of minimizing drought risk and maximizing economic profits but could also undermine the social benefits, such as regional grain security. A robust adaptation strategy should balance the ecological and economic benefits with social interests to maintain agricultural sustainability.     

Classical Swine Fever Changes the Way Farmers Value Pigs in South Africa

Although there is growing demand for animal products in Africa, production is stagnating. Appropriate management of livestock diversity could help reinvigorate production, contribute to food security and improve farmers’ livelihoods, particularly in subsistence‐oriented systems. We assess differences in farmers’ preferences and economic values for pig traits across different production systems and across areas that have been affected and unaffected by classical swine fever (CSF). Not surprisingly, market‐oriented farmers derived higher values from the productive traits such as heavy slaughter weight and large litter size found in exotic pig genotypes. Subsistence‐oriented farmers, particularly in swine fever affected areas, placed high value on tolerance to disease. We found that CSF changed farmers’ preferences for adaptive traits, and less so for productive traits. Therefore, indigenous breeds become more valuable for subsistence farmers and crossbreeds for market‐oriented farmers if CSF is a risk. Our results can have implications for breeding and conservation strategies and for compensation strategies after culling, and will become increasingly relevant if, as predicted, heat waves and disease outbreaks become more frequent in pig production systems in South Africa with climate change.     

Climate Risk and Technology Adoption in the Midstream of Crop Value Chains: Evidence from Nigerian Maize Traders

Climate induced events exacerbate food production and distribution risks, posing a threat to global food security. Though many studies focus on farmer adaptation to climate change, there are few studies of actors in the middle of agricultural value chains such as traders, logistics providers, and processors. The activities of these actors, referred to as the ‘hidden middle’, are key determinants of the prices received by farmers and the price and quality of food products for consumers. We explore how climate events and risk perceptions affect the adoption of value‐adding and damage control strategies among maize traders in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and most populous country. We find consistent evidence that climate events and climate risk perception discourage the adoption of value‐adding practices including storage. This potentially affects the availability and price of maize for consumers (household and industry) in the lean season. However, once traders store maize, climate risk does not affect the adoption of damage control, but training and social networks do. These findings suggest that actors in the midstream of food value chains are responding to climate change and more attention needs to be paid to these actors to maintain the availability of affordable and safe maize products throughout the year. There is also a need for strategies to reduce the risks of trading activities due to climate change.     

Determinants of climate change adaptation strategies and its impact on the net farm income of rice farmers in south-west Nigeria

A multivariate probit (MVP) model was used to analyse the determinants of strategies adopted for adapting to climate change in a sample of smallholder rice farmers in south-west Nigeria. An efficient endogenous switching regression model (ESRM) was used to estimate the impact of climate change adaptation strategy on the net income of rice farmers. The MVP results show that the socio-economic factors, the institutional factors, and locational variables of some households statistically influenced the choice of climate change adaptation strategies employed. Complementarities among all the adaptation strategies used by the farmers were revealed by the positive pair-wise correlation matrix of the MVP model. The study also indicated that farmers affected by prolonged drought and incidences of flood were more likely to adopt adaptation strategies on their farmlands. The ESRM treatment effect indicated that the average net income per rice farm of those who adopted the strategies was significantly higher than that of those who did not. Thus, the government, stakeholders, and donor agencies must provide capacity-building innovations related to agricultural extension systems and climate change education through information and communication technologies. This investment in education is essential for development and would encourage farmers to adopt appropriate climate change adaptation strategies.     

Farmers’ decisions to adapt to climate change under various property rights: A case study of maize farming in northern Benin (West Africa)

Making the assumption that property rights might determine whether farmers adopt particular strategies, this study aims at modelling farmers’ decisions to adapt to climate change by focusing on their property rights – declined as institutional arrangements on land and rights on land – as well as their socio-economic and demographic characteristics. The case study took place in northern Benin (West Africa). In this zone, 308 farmers producing maize and adapting to climate change were randomly sampled. The study was conducted by a survey method on respondents using structured interviews based on a questionnaire. A simultaneous modelling using a Multivariate Probit (MVP) model highlighted that socio-economic and demographic characteristics, institutional arrangements on land, and rights on land determine the farmers’ decisions to adapt to climate change. The land ownership has a positive effect on the decision to adopt any adaptation strategy. Subsequently, securing farmers’ property rights would help to enhance their capacity to adapt to climate change.     

How collective efficacy makes a difference in responses to water shortage due to climate change in southwest Iran

Climate change impacts the water sector in a manner that reduces the harvest and income of farmers, thereby exacerbating poverty and many other social problems. However, through adaptation measures, farmers can manage climate change impacts and thus reduce their vulnerability. To design effective public adaptation strategies, it is crucial to understand farmers’ behaviors at the farm level in response to water shortage due to climate change. Thus, the aim of this research is to accrue empirical evidence about farmers’ perceptions of and responses to water shortage due to climate change, using the Protection Motivation Theory. To increase the predictive power of the model, this paper added the collective efficacy variable to the model. The population of interest consisted of farmers from Shushtar, a county in Khuzestan Province, southwestern Iran. A total of 251 farmers were selected using a multi-stage, clustered, random sampling method. The results of structural equation modeling revealed that model variables accounted for 39 % of variance in farmers’ adaptation behaviors. The inclusion of collective efficacy in the original model increased its predictive power and produced a model of a better fit; the proportion of variance accounted for an increase of about 11 %. These findings are expected to yield recommendations for public policy, as well as agricultural extension and education recommendations for stimulating successful adaptation behaviors among Iranian farmers.     

Adaptation May Reduce Climate Damage in Agriculture by Two Thirds

Although climate change may severely impact agriculture, farmers can mitigate it by adapting. Using US data, we estimate the amount of potential loss in agricultural profits, due to climate change, that can be reduced by agricultural adaptation. We consider two panel frameworks that differ only in their fixed effects specifications, where this difference allows us to estimate the climate change impact on agricultural profits with or without adaptation. Comparing these estimates, we find that adaptation has the potential to offset about two‐thirds of the end‐of‐century loss in agricultural profits potentially resulting from climate change. We also find that the warmest region in the US (i.e. in the south) has the most to gain from adaptation.     

Farm households’ risk perception,attitude and adaptation strategies in dealing with climate change: Promise and perils from rural Pakistan

Pakistan is highly vulnerable to extreme climatic events, such as floods and droughts. This study determines the farmers’ risk perception, risk attitude, adaptation measures and various aspects of vulnerability to climate change (e.g. floods, droughts, heavy rainfalls, pests and disease) at farm level in rural Pakistan. The risk perception and attitude of farm households are crucial factors that influence farm productivity, investment and management decisions at this level. A well-designed questionnaire was used to interview 720 farm households from six districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A binary logit model was used to determine the main factors that affect the choice of adaptation strategies of the farm household. The findings revealed that crop diversification, changing crop varieties, altering the crop calendar, varying the fertilizer used, mulching and farm insurance were the main adaptation strategies followed by farm households. The results of the binary logit model revealed that age, education, farm size, household size, credit accessibility, annual income and the perception on the increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall had significant influence on the selection of the adaption strategies. The findings of this study can provide guidance, policy recommendations and reference for future researchers.     

State‐contingent analysis of farmers’ response to weather variability: irrigated dairy farming in the Murray Valley,Australia

The agricultural sector is commonly regarded as one of the most vulnerable to climate change. Current understanding of the impact of climate change on this sector relies on the underlying assumptions about farmers’ possible responses to weather variability, including changes in crop choice, input combinations and land management practices. Many previous analyses rely on the implicit (and restrictive) assumption that farmers operate under a fixed technology set across different states of nature. This assumption, represented through stochastic production or profit functions, is commonly made but seldom tested and may understate farmers’ responses to climate change if state‐contingent production technologies are, in reality, more flexible. The potential for farmers to adapt production technologies in response to unforeseen events is at the core of the state‐contingent approach. Advanced in Chambers and Quiggin (2000), the theory contends that producers can manage uncertainty through the allocation of productive inputs to different states of nature. In this article, we test the assumption that farmers’ observed behaviour is consistent with the state‐contingent production theory using farm‐level data from Australia. More precisely, we estimate the milk production technology for a sample of irrigated dairy farms from the southern Murray–Darling Basin over the period from 2006–2007 to 2009–2010.     

Farm-level adaptation to climate change in Western Bangladesh: An analysis of adaptation dynamics,profitability and risks

Using long-term district-level climate data and a case study from a drought-prone village in western Bangladesh, this research explored trends in climate change, and analysed farmers’ adaptation dynamics, profitability and risks. This is the first study of its kind for drought-prone areas in Bangladesh.Farmers perceived climate changes included increases in temperature and decreases in rainfall which were as consistent with the trends of Chuadanga climate records. Farmers’ adaptation measures included changes in cropping systems, cropping calendars, crop varieties, agronomic practices, crop diversification and improved animal husbandry. Reducing environmental stress, ensuring self-sufficiency in staple crops (mainly rice) and other crop production practices, and enhancing economic viability of farm enterprises have underpinned these adaptations. Off-farm and non-farm wage employment, temporary migration, self-employment and educating children, constituted the core non-farm adaptation strategies.Emerging cropping systems like maize/cucumber and maize/stem amaranth/rice were economically more viable than the traditional rice/rice and rice/maize systems. Despite some uncertainties, farming was preferred to off-farm work, generating higher returns to labour for all cropping systems. Limited access to stress-tolerant varieties, extension services and affordable agricultural credit, combined with high production costs, variability in crop yields and output prices, are the main barriers to adaptation. Stronger agricultural research and support services, affordable credit, community-focussed farming education and training are critically important for effective adaptation to climate change.     

Measuring impacts and adaptations to climate change: a structural Ricardian model of African livestock management1

This article develops a new cross‐sectional methodology that explicitly incorporates adaptation into an analysis of the impacts of climate change. The methodology examines how a farmer will change choices of species and number to adapt to climate. The approach is applied to study Africa, where the impacts of climate change are expected to be the most severe. The results indicate that in warmer places, African farmers switch from beef cattle to more heat‐tolerant goats and sheep. In wetter places, farmers switch from cattle and sheep to goats and chickens. The results indicate that large commercial livestock operations specializing in beef cattle will be hard hit from climate change whereas small farmers who can easily substitute to goats and/or sheep will be more resilient.     

Short supply chain participation and market performance for vegetable farmers in China

The fresh food supply chain in China has begun to reduce the number of intermediaries that connect producers and consumers. Using farm‐level data, this paper investigates the impacts of short supply chain participation on vegetable farmers’ market performance, including profits, productivity, production cost, price and price risk. The results show that the participation in a short supply chain is a profit‐maximising strategy and risk management tool for farmers. The increase in profit is attributed to productivity advantages, farm size expansion, and risk reduction rather than because of price premiums or cost savings. A policy implication is that short supply chain promotion has many benefits, but the government should be more concerned about the sustainability of short supply chains.