Global and Local Concerns: What Attitudes and Beliefs Motivate Farmers to Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change?

Abstract

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.

Farmer’s intended and actual adoption of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies

“…For non-adopters, farmers who believed in human-induced climate change and expressed concerns about its impacts were more likely to indicate they would adopt adaptation and mitigation behaviors. This is consistent with existing studies where farmers with climate belief and risk perceptions were more likely to adopt mitigation and adaptation behaviors (Arbuckle et al 2013;Haden et al 2012;Barnes and Toma 2012) and support climate change policies (Niles et al 2013). Our measure for human-induced climate change (44 % belief) also appears to be within the range of other surveys measuring developed world farmer climate perspectives ranging from 25 % in Scotland to 33 % in California to 59 % in the Midwest US to 63 % in Canada (Prokopy et al 2015;Cox et al 2015).…”

“…Interviews were used to inform the development of a telephone survey, which was implemented in August-October 2012 in Marlborough and Hawke's Bay regions. The survey was originally conducted in Yolo County, California in 2011 (Niles et al 2013;Haden et al 2012;Jackson et al 2012). The New Zealand survey was adjusted for local context including practices that were relevant to the region and language.…”

“…Efforts to understand how farmers perceive climate change and may respond have been particularly focused in developing countries (Wood et al 2014;Kristjanson et al Bryan et al 2009;Seo and Mendelsohn 2008) especially in the context of food security and production. However, there is growing attention on assessing developed country farmers' perspectives on climate change and their responses (Prokopy et al 2015;Niles et al 2015;Arbuckle et al 2014;Niles et al 2013;Haden et al 2012;Barnes and Toma 2012). This work is crucial to assess both at a case study level Arbuckle et al 2014;Haden et al 2012) and across broader contexts (Wood et al 2014) to determine drivers of climate mitigation and adaptation behaviors.…”

Communicating Climate Change: A Qualitative Study Exploring how Communicators and Educators are Approaching Climate-Change Discussions

“…It is important to realize that individuals perceive climate change in a variety of ways and prioritize different values, making it clear that climate change cannot be responded to in a single way (O'Brien & Wolf, 2010). Efforts to include agricultural producers in voluntary climate-change initiatives should consider framing climate-change impacts and behavioral goals (Haden, Niles, Lubell, Perlman, & Jackson, 2012). Social media has been identified as one way for organizations to interactively communicate and build relationships (Jun, 2011).…”

Can’t get there from here: attainable distance, sustainable intensification and full-scale technical potential

“…Hence, the most significant tier of sustainable intensification, which has not been discussed in detail, is the 'scaling out' of technologies across a region and along a supply chain. This exposes a sustainable technology to behavioural differences across farming and between supply chain actors, including consumers (Haden et al 2012;Barnes and Toma 2012;Islam et al 2013;Fischer et al 2013), economic barriers (Anderson et al 2001;Antle and Diagana 2003;Prokopy et al 2008;Baumgart-Getz et al 2012) and biophysical barriers (Chavas and Holt 1990;Brain et al 2014). These barriers are also determined by the type and amount of intervention within the sector, which in turn is characterised by the governance structure of a particular region.…”