Do Socio Economic Characteristics of Farming Community Really Matter for the Adoption of Climate Change Strategies? A Case Study of Central Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Agriculture sector is vital to ensure global food security and eradicate poverty in rural areas but climate change poses a great threat to this sector especially in developing countries due to lower adaptive capacity of farming community in these countries. Farming community can minimize the impact of climate change on agriculture by adopting climate change strategies at their farms. Therefore, this study analyzed how farmers perceive climate change, which strategies they adopt to minimize the impact of climate change at their farms, and the influential factors affecting the adoption of these strategies. For this purpose, cross sectional data of 195 farmers selected through multi stage purposive and random sampling techniques were collected in a face to face survey and multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine the factors affecting adoption of climate change strategies. Climate change is no more a mystery for the farmers and farming community perceive this variability very well. Majority of the farmers perceived an increase in both summer as well as winter temperatures. Farming community in the area was adopting conventional climate change strategies such as changing in crop cultivation dates, new crop varieties, crop diversification, mix farming, and intensified use of chemicals at their farms in order to minimize the climate changes. Adoption of climate change strategies at farm level was influenced by schooling years, age, machinery ownership, market distance, agricultural labor force, extension services and total land of the farmers. Therefore, extension services, and improving road infrastructure to enhance market access are essential to increase adoption of climate change strategies among farmers.