Results presented herein describe the experiences of fruit farmers with climate change. Data for the analysis were collected from 801 face-to-face interviews with cherry and peach farmers at four geographically distinct locations in Chile and Tunisia. Climate change issues are currently more important for cherry farmers in Chile, while financial issues for peach farmers in Tunisia. However, all farmers in the four regions investigated, Central and Southern Chile and Northern and Central Tunisia, have experienced some type of climate-related crop damage between 2009 and 2018. Temperature-related crop impacts were noticeable in all regions. The main climate-related problems, specifically mentioned by the farmers, were hotter summers, shifts in the amount and patterns of precipitation as well as extreme and unpredictable weather events (such as frosts and hail). Water scarcity (droughts, access to water) is mentioned by the majority of the farmers in all geographical areas as the main current and future climate-related problem they face. Many of the climate change-related problems are region-specific, such as killer frosts in Central Chile and wind and hail damage in Central Tunisia. Adaptive measures will need to take regional differences into consideration. Eighty-three percent of farmers in Chile while only 70% of farmers in Tunisia plan to undertake adaptive measures to reduce climate impacts on their farming operations.
Herein we report on adaptive measures undertaken and likely to be undertaken by fruit farmers to counter climate change impacts on their farm operations. The study is based on face-to-face interviews with 801 peach and cherry farmers in Tunisia and Chile and three focus meetings with farm representatives. Farmers have used and are planning to use a number of agricultural, technological and financial tools to reduce the vulnerability of their crops to climate change. Agronomical measures are focused on planting varieties with higher drought and disease resistance as well as lower winter chill requirements. Technological focus on installing nets reflects farmer regional experiences with crop hail damage and rain at the fruit maturing stage. Planned improvements in irrigation reflect anticipated future problems with water availability and drought. The decision not to implement adaptive measures is mainly linked to economic considerations. Cooperation between farmers, governments, industry and scientists is needed to overcome barriers that could hinder the implementation of adaptive measures. Specific actions are proposed to overcome these barriers.
Supervised machine learning and statistical modeling methods were used to analyze the impact of climate change on financial wellbeing of fruit farmers in Tunisia and Chile. The analysis was based on face to face interviews with 801 farmers. This is the first report directly comparing climate change hazards with other factors potentially impacting financial wellbeing of (fruit) farms. Certain climate change factors, namely increases in temperature and reductions in precipitation, can regionally impact self-perceived financial wellbeing of fruit farmers. Specifically, increases in temperature and reduction in precipitation can have a measurable negative impact on the financial wellbeing of farms in Chile. This effect is less pronounced in Tunisia. However, climate change is only of minor importance for predicting farm financial wellbeing, especially for farms already doing financially well. Factors that are more important, mainly in Tunisia, included trust in information sources and prior farm ownership. Other important factors include farm size, water management systems used and diversity of fruit crops grown. Moreover, some of the important factors identified differed between farms doing and not doing well financially. Interactions between factors may improve or worsen farm financial wellbeing.
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