Perception of and Adaptive Capacities to Climate Change Adaptation Strategies and Their Effects on Rice Production: A Case of Pabna District, Bangladesh

Abstract

Abstract:Bangladesh is one of the most sensitive hotspot for climate change and climate-related extreme events which significantly affect agricultural production. As a result farmers' try to minimize the adverse affects by various adaptation strategies. The aim of the study is thus, perception of and adaption capacities to climate change adaption strategies and their effects on rice production in a moderate level of drought severity and groundwater depletion but greater cropping diversity area (Pabna District). To find out the actual trend of climatic variables (e.g., temperature and rainfall) fourty two years of climate data on temperature and rainfall from the Bangladesh Metrological Department (BMD) for Ishwardi weather station were collected and analyzed using non-parametric Mann-Kendall test. The adaptive capacities of rice farmers were estimated quantitatively and categorized into high, moderate and low adaptive capacities. Double logarithmic regression model of Cobb-Douglas production function was used to quantity the effects of adaptive capacities of farmers on rice production. The data was obtained by conducting direct collaboration with 200 rice growers of Pabna District in the periods of July, 2015. The results of Mann-Kendall test revealed that an increase in annual temperature of +0.014°C and decrease in annual rainfall -1.152 from 1972 to 2013 has been recorded for the Ishwardi station of Pabna District, Bangladesh which is similar with the farmers' perceptions. Result of adaptive capacities revealed that on the average the farmers' interviewed are moderately adaptive to climate change. The results of Cobb-Douglas production function identified that the degree of adaptive capacities, labour, use of fertilizer, farm size, education and extension contact have significant effects on rice production. It also indicates that the more a farmer has the ability to adjust to climate change strategies the more the rice output he or she obtain. Therefore, rice farmers should be empowered through better extension services for obtaining more rice output. Strengthening agricultural research and support services including information accessibility, education and training for improved crop culture practices, and expanded and efficient surface-water irrigation infrastructure are critically important for increasing the adaptive capacities of the farmers.

Determination of Perception and Adaptive Capacity towards Climate Change among Paddy Farmers in State of Kelantan, Malaysia

“…In addition, the analysis using binary logistic regression highlighted age of paddy farmers, monthly income of paddy farmers, and the district in which paddy farmers reside as the factors that associated with the level of adaptive capacity significantly. These findings are in line with the previous studies ( [15], [21], [25]). Furthermore, the findings could assist KADA and agricultural authorities in Kelantan to take appropriate measures in ensuring paddy farmers in Kelantan to be highly adaptive towards the changes in climate.…”

“…The final step involved classifying the sores into three different levels of adaptive capacity which are low, moderate, and high. Table 2 shows the three categories of adaptive capacity which are based on the range levels referred from the previous study [21].…”

Assessing Livelihood Adaptation Indices and the Sustainability of Rice Farmers in Bangladesh's Northwestern Region

“…Farmers who can access more credit adopt a more sustainable farming culture than those who access less. Sarker et al (2013), Eyasmin et al (2017), Linh et al (2019), and Adeleye et al ( 2020) also found a positive and statistically significant relationship between accessing credit and sustainable agricultural production. In all three dimensions of economic, environmental, and social sustainability, the relation between extended contacts and production sustainability is highly significant at a 1% significance level, though receiving higher extension services will result in higher social and environmental sustainability than economic sustainability as extension contacts become environmentally viable such as soil conservation, minimizing pesticides use, and organic farming.…”

“…Figure 1 shows the study area, in which 79.85% of the people in the survey have their livelihood on agriculture. Moreover, Ishwardi Upazila and Lalpur Upazila reach their peak vulnerability from the intensity and frequent drought (Alauddin and Sarker, 2014;Eyasmin et al, 2017). The survey questionnaire included the 14 adaptation strategies such as irrigation, chemical fertilizer application, organic manure application, restructure cash flow and debt, crop rotation, offfarm activities, diseases tolerant varieties, changing planting dates, drought tolerance rice varieties, and crop diversification, which were identified in different studies in the drought-prone area (Ghosh et al, 2016;Eyasmin et al, 2017;Kabir et al, 2017).…”

“…A positive relationship for the size of the family, and the tendency to implement irrigation, chemical fertilizer, and changing planting dates have been established by Eyasmin et al (2017) and Yasin and Ghosh (2019).…”