Eyes on the Horizon: Temporal and Social Perspectives of Climate Risk and Agricultural Decision Making among Climate-Informed Farmers (original) (raw)
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2016
Climate change has potential to both positively and negatively impact aspects of agriculture throughout New York State. The success of programs aiming to address climate change through both adaptation and mitigation strategies depends upon the support of the target stakeholders. This study aimed to capture the psychological distance of climate change in the minds of New York (NY) farmers while exploring their concern for specific impacts as well as their willingness to pay (WTP) for mitigation. Overall, participating farmers were aware of climate change and tended to view it as a spatially, socially, and temporally proximal phenomenon. Prior experience with flooding was found to be a significant predictor of respondents’ psychological distance to climate change, their stated concern for impacts, and their willingness to pay for mitigation. Communication and outreach initiatives can improve their efficacy by considering the attitudes, beliefs, and concerns of the farmers that they ta...
Weather and Climate Variability May Be Poor Proxies for Climate Change in Farmer Risk Perceptions
Weather, Climate, and Society, 2019
Despite long-standing assertions that climate change creates new risk management challenges, the climate change adaptation literature persists in assuming, both implicitly and explicitly, that weather and climate variability are suitable proxies for climate change in evaluating farmers' risk perceptions and predicting their adaptive responses. This assumption persists in part because there is surprisingly little empirical evidence either way, although case studies suggest that there may be important differences. Here, we use a national survey of South Africa's commercial grain farmers (n 5 389)-similar to their peers in higher-income countries (e.g., North America, Europe, Australia), but without subsidies-to show that they treat weather and climate change risks quite differently. We find that their perceptions of climate change risks are distinct from and, in many regards, oppositional to their perceptions of weather risks. While there seems to be a temporal element to this distinction (i.e., differing concern for short-term vs long-term risks), there are other differences that are better understood in terms of normalcy (i.e., normal vs abnormal relative to historical climate) and permanency (i.e., temporary vs permanent changes). We also find an interaction effect of education and political identity on concern for climate change that is at odds with the well-publicized cultural cognition thesis based on surveys of the American public. Overall, studies that use weather and climate variability as unqualified proxies for climate change are likely to mislead researchers and policymakers about how farmers perceive, interpret, and respond to climate change stimuli.
Little research has been conducted on how agricultural producers in the northeastern United States conceptualize climate-related risk and how these farmers address risk through on-farm management strategies. Two years following Tropical Storm Irene, our team interviewed 15 farmers in order to investigate their perceptions of climate-related risk and how their decision-making was influenced by these perceptions. Our results show that Vermont farmers are concerned with both ecological and economic risk. Subthemes that emerged included geographic, topographic, and hydrological characteristics of farm sites; stability of land tenure; hydrological erosion; pest and disease pressure; market access; household financial stability; and floods. Farmers in our study believed that these risks are not new but that they are significantly intensified by climate change. Farmer responses were heavily focused on adaptation activities, with discussion of climate change mitigation activities notably absent. Psychological distance construal theory and hyper-bolic dis counting emerged as well-suited frames to explain why farmers reported adaptation activities but not mitigation strategies. Farmers will probably experience an increasing severity of climate-related impacts in the northeast region; therefore, information about climate-related risks coming from farmers' personal experience should be integrated with forecasting data to help farmers plan effective adaptation strategies. Introduction This paper addresses how agricultural risks are conceptualized in an era of climate change, specifically by farmers in the state of Vermont, in the northeastern United States. In order to do this, we draw from three key concepts that are central to our study: (1) vulnerability, (2) risk, and (3) adaptation. We start by briefly defining these terms within the context of this study. Adger (2006) wrote that vulnerability is " the state of susceptibility to harm from exposure to stresses associated with environmental and social change and from the absence of capacity to adapt " (2006, p. 268). It is important to note that theoretical conceptualizations of vulnerability have been applied in many ways to the topic of human relationship to climate change. The degree to which an individual or group is vulnerable to climate change is a function of access to resources and degree of social power, as well as the physical effects of climate change (Mearns and Norton, 2010). A thorough review of this topic is beyond the scope of this study, but a succinct overview of how the term has been used in socioeconomic systems is provided by Fraser et al. (2011). In this study, we use the definition by Adger discussed above, with the added nuance proposed by Mearns and Norton, to examine vulnerability.
Risk perception and decision-making: do farmers consider risks from climate change?
Climatic Change, 2018
Small-scale farmers are highly threatened by climate change. Experts often base their interventions to support farmers to adapt to climate change on their own perception of farmers' livelihood risks. However, if differences in risk perception between farmers and experts exist, these interventions might fail. Thus, for effective design and implementation of adaptation strategies for farmers, it is necessary to understand farmers' perception and how it influences their decision-making. We analyze farmers' and experts' systemic view on climate change threats in relation to other agricultural livelihood risks and assess the differences between their perceptions. For Cauca, Colombia, we found that experts and farmers perceived climate-related and other livelihood risks differently. While farmers' perceived risks were a failure in crop production and lack of access to health and educational services, experts, in contrast, perceived insecurity and the unreliable weather to be the highest risks for farmers. On barriers that prevent farmers from taking action against risks, experts perceived both external factors such as the national policy and internal factors such as the adaptive capacity of farmers to be the main barriers. Farmers ranked the lack of information, especially about weather and climate, as their main barrier to adapt. Effective policies aiming at climate change adaptation need to relate climate change risks to other production risks as farmers often perceive climate change in the context of other risks. Policymakers in climate change need to consider differences in risk perception.
Climate Change Perceptions of NY State Farmers: The Role of Risk Perceptions and Adaptive Capacity
Climate change is expected to severely impact agricultural practices in many important food-producing regions, including the Northeast United States. Changing climate conditions, such as increases in the amount of rainfall, will require farmers to adapt. Yet, little is known with regard to farmers' perceptions and understandings about climate change, especially in the industrialized country context. This paper aims at overcoming this research limitation, as well as determining the existing contextual, cognitive, and psychological barriers that can prevent adoption of sustainable practices of farmers in New York State. The study is framed within the adaptive capacity and risk perception literature, and is based on a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with farmers in 21 farms in two counties in Central New York. The results reveal diverging views about the long-term consequences of climate change. Results also reveal that past experience remains as the most important source of information that influences beliefs and perceptions about climate change, confirming previous research.
PLoS ONE, 2012
In response to agriculture's vulnerability and contribution to climate change, many governments are developing initiatives that promote the adoption of mitigation and adaptation practices among farmers. Since most climate policies affecting agriculture rely on voluntary efforts by individual farmers, success requires a sound understanding of the factors that motivate farmers to change practices. Recent evidence suggests that past experience with the effects of climate change and the psychological distance associated with people's concern for global and local impacts can influence environmental behavior. Here we surveyed farmers in a representative rural county in California's Central Valley to examine how their intention to adopt mitigation and adaptation practices is influenced by previous climate experiences and their global and local concerns about climate change. Perceived changes in water availability had significant effects on farmers' intention to adopt mitigation and adaptation strategies, which were mediated through global and local concerns respectively. This suggests that mitigation is largely motivated by psychologically distant concerns and beliefs about climate change, while adaptation is driven by psychologically proximate concerns for local impacts. This match between attitudes and behaviors according to the psychological distance at which they are cognitively construed indicates that policy and outreach initiatives may benefit by framing climate impacts and behavioral goals concordantly; either in a global context for mitigation or a local context for adaptation.
Climate Change Beliefs And Vulnerability Among Farmers In The Upper Corn Belt
2021
Anticipatory water management must reflect not only future climatic conditions, but also the social and psychological dimensions of vulnerability that drive adaptation. Compared to the western U.S., farmers in the upper Corn Belt have had less exposure to extreme drought and have lower rates of irrigation adoption. If climate change threatens to increase drought frequency or severity in the Corn Belt, transitioning from rain-fed agriculture to irrigated agriculture would require systemic changes and significant financial investments. Knowing what drives perceptions and feelings of drought vulnerability will improve understanding and anticipation of farmer adaptation behaviors such as irrigation. We surveyed central Minnesota agricultural producers about their perceptions of water scarcity in two groundwater management areas where climate models show heightened variability in water supply during the growing season. We examined the influence of farmer beliefs about climate change, dro...
Assessing farmers’ perceptions about climate change: A double-hurdle approach
Climate Risk Management, 2017
Drawing from insights of the behavioural decision research, this study applies a doublehurdle (DH) estimation technique to assess social-psychological factors influencing the likelihood of perceiving climate risk and, given positive perception, the perceived patterns of climate change (CC) among farmers in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The model employs survey data collected from small-scale farmers, 68% of whom had recognized CC, as indicated by perceptions of abnormal weather. Dominant perceptions are analysed using a principal component analysis technique and appraised based on meteorological records. The results point to higher probabilities of perceiving climate risk among farmers who experience more emotive mental imagery and those with stronger egalitarian values. The results further suggest that farmers who perceive CC based on affective impression and direct personal experience are more likely to suffer cognitive bias in their perceptions compared to farmers who perceive climate risk based on knowledge and analytic processing of climate information. Based on these findings, recommendations for effective CC communication policy are outlined.
Climatic Change, 2013
A February 2012 survey of almost 5,000 farmers across a region of the U.S. that produces more than half of the nation's corn and soybean revealed that 66 % of farmers believed climate change is occurring (8 % mostly anthropogenic, 33 % equally human and natural, 25 % mostly natural), while 31 % were uncertain and 3.5 % did not believe that climate change is occurring. Results of initial analyses indicate that farmers' beliefs about climate change and its causes vary considerably, and the relationships between those beliefs, concern about the potential impacts of climate change, and attitudes toward adaptive and mitigative action differ in systematic ways. Farmers who believed that climate change is occurring and attributable to human activity were significantly more likely to express concern about impacts and support adaptive and mitigative action. On the other hand, farmers who attributed climate change to natural causes, were uncertain about whether it Climatic Change is occurring, or did not believe that it is occurring were less concerned, less supportive of adaptation, and much less likely to support government and individual mitigative action. Results suggest that outreach with farmers should account for these covariances in belief, concerns, and attitudes toward adaptation and mitigation.
Environmental management, 2015
Climate change has serious implications for the agricultural industry-both in terms of the need to adapt to a changing climate and to modify practices to mitigate for the impacts of climate change. In high-income countries where farming tends to be very intensive and large scale, it is important to understand farmers' beliefs and concerns about climate change in order to develop appropriate policies and communication strategies. Looking across six study sites-Scotland, Midwestern United States, California, Australia, and two locations in New Zealand-this paper finds that over half of farmers in each location believe that climate change is occurring. However, there is a wide range of beliefs regarding the anthropogenic nature of climate change; only in Australia do a majority of farmers believe that climate change is anthropogenic. In all locations, a majority of farmers believe that climate change is not a threat to local agriculture. The different policy contexts and existing i...