A Climate for Change? Norwegian Farmers’ Attitudes to Climate Change and Climate Policy

Abstract

Climate change is one of the major challenges of our time, and particularly so for agriculture. Agriculture is a significant contributor to climate change and, according to projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will experience alterations in production conditions in the future. The Norwegian government’s 2009 White Paper on climate policy for agriculture is based on the point of view that the agricultural sector can and should contribute to Norway fulfilling its climate policy commitments. This requires changes in farm operations and production methods, making the farmer an important agent when it comes to the implementation of climate change mitigation measures. In this article, I study Norwegian farmers’ climate change perceptions and priorities, and examine what it would take for them to consider implementing mitigation measures on their own farms. The analysis is based on a survey focusing on climate change from a representative sample of Norwegian farmers in 2011, the only survey of its kind conducted on this group so far. The results show that even if farmers perceive climate change as real and manmade, they do not appear to experience the changes as requiring immediate action. Moreover, farmers seem to view adapting to new environmental policy as a greater challenge than adapting to climate change itself. Farmers also appear to place production-related goals and managing the farm economy higher on the agenda than curbing emissions. Financial incentives, in the form of public support schemes or higher prices for food produced in a more environmentally friendly way, are factors which could increase the likelihood of implementing environmental measures on their own farms. A majority of farmers also believe that sectors other than agriculture should contribute more to cuts in greenhouse gases. Factors that most clearly explain the variation in attitudes to climate change are education levels, political or ideological factors, and the feeling of proximity; that is to say, to what extent one perceives climate change to be something that will affect one’s own productivity in the future. In order to fulfill environmental policy commitments in the agricultural sector, farmers’ motivation must be strengthened, and the focus should be placed on measures that view productivity goals, farm economies and mitigation measures in a wider context.

Climate change opportunities reduce farmers' risk perception: Extension of the value-belief-norm theory in the context of Finnish agriculture

“…What is important is that person believes it to be true (Heberlein, 2012 ). Farmers' beliefs connected with the human–environment interaction in the climate change context have been the growing focus of research in the past decade (Karki et al, 2020 ) with many examples around the world (USA: Arbuckle et al, 2013a , b ; Australia: Buys et al, 2012 ; Chile: Roco et al, 2015 ; New Zealand: Niles et al, 2016 ; Italy: Nguyen et al, 2016 ; Sweden: Asplund, 2016 ; South Africa: Hitayezu et al, 2017 ; Bangladesh: Kabir et al, 2017 ; Nepal: Khanal et al, 2018 ; Norway: Brobakk, 2018 ; Peru: Altea, 2020 and Finland: Peltonen-Sainio et al, 2020 ; Sorvali et al, 2021 ). Perception is sometimes used interchangeably with attitude or belief, but it is a broader term incorporating knowledge, beliefs, attitude, concern, affect, and perceived risk (Whitmarsh and Capstick, 2018 ).…”

What makes people act climate-friendly? A decision-making path model for designing effective climate change policies

“…Electric car buyers do not have to pay a vehicle purchase tax or road tolls [41]. This stage also includes phase-out or decarbonization policies such as bans or regulations that require specific technologies or sectors to reduce GHG emissions in form of the polluter paying the principle [58]; incentives promoting green technologies; and the removal of subsidizes for high-carbon technologies [10] as part of the green growth movement [58]. It is crucial that phase-out policies include transitional strategies in form of financial compensation or retraining of personnel to increase social acceptance and reduce resistance to a low-carbon transition [10].…”

Farmers’ interest in crowdfunding to finance climate change mitigation practices

“…The agreement leaves farmers free to choose which mitigation approaches to employ (Norges Bondelag, 2019). To date, however, farmers' response to climate change mitigation has been weak (Brobakk, 2018;Flemsaeter et al, 2018;Rønningen et al, 2021), with estimates that only 2% of Norwegian farmers stating they implemented measures in response to climate change (adaptation or mitigation) by 2018 (Brobakk, 2018). Socioeconomic constraints may prevent farmers from adopting climate change measures.…”

“…First, farmers can be 'locked-in' to current production systems through socio-cultural norms and expectations (Burton and Farstad, 2020;Farstad et al, 2020;Mills et al, 2020) as well as technological, financial, and physical constraints (Rønningen et al, 2021;Smith et al, 2007). Second, farmers may be sceptical about climate policies being able to deliver the desired GHG reductions without affecting farm productivity and economic viability (Brobakk, 2018;Kragt et al, 2017;Niles et al, 2016). Third, a lack of funding for mitigation measures influences farmers' ability to change their practices (Mills et al, 2020;Otte et al, 2019;Sánchez et al, 2016).…”