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Adaptation Towards Climate Change Effects on Coastal Agriculture by the Farmers of Patuakhali District of Bangladesh

Md. Sumon Howlader
Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Faculty of Agriculture, Patuakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh.

Md. Golam Rabbani Akanda
Professor
Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Faculty of Agriculture, Patuakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh.

A. K. M. Mostafa Zaman
Professor
Department of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, Faculty of Disaster Management, Patuakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh.

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

The study examined the adaptation strategies used by farmers in some selected areas of Bangladesh to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change on coastal agriculture. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA), focus group discussions, and semi-structured interview were used to collect information from a total of 101 farmers, which were selected using multistage random sampling technique. Pearson product moment correlation was used to determine the relationship between variables. Majority (79.10 percent) of the respondents had medium to low adaptation and only 20.90 percent had high adaptation practices to climate change affecting agriculture in the study area. Among ten selected characteristics of the coastal farmers the correlation coefficients of 6 variables were positively significant. These were age, education, farming experience, communication exposure, agricultural knowledge, and fatalism. Adaptation strategies taken by the farmers in coastal area of Bangladesh included: cultivating short duration crop, poultry rearing, homestead gardening, practicing crop diversification, practicing crop rotation, practicing inter cropping, sarjon method of vegetable cultivation, cultivation of saline tolerant variety, changing sowing/ planting time etc. As the back bone of the national economy is agriculture, government has paid attention though not sufficient to take adaptation measure. Inadequate credit facilities have been reported as major constraints of adaptation in agriculture. The study concludes that there is need for government and other stakeholders to make noticeable efforts to enact appropriate policies on climate change adaptation and assist local farmers to improve their resilience to climate change effect.

Keywords: Adaptation, Coastal agriculture, Climate change, Farmers, Strategies

Location: Galachipa upazila of Patuakhali district

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Risk Management in Agriculture

Non-commodity: Weather/Climate

Objectives:

1. To determine and describe the extent of farmers' adaptation strategies towards climate change on coastal agriculture,

2. To explore the relationship between the farmers' adaptation strategies and the farmers selected characteristics.

Methodology:

The study area was coastal area namely Galachipa upazila of Patuakhali district of Bangladesh. The geographic location of the study area is 22.1639°N 90.4306°E. Galachipa upazilahas 13 unions from which Galachipa union was selected randomly. From 12 villages 5 villages viz. Boalia, East Ratandi, Gorabala, Kalikapur and Pokkhia were selected randomly. Landless and absentee farmers were discarded from the farmers list with the help of SAAOs. Thus the sample population was 1012. Then 10 percent of the sample population from each village was selected separately as the sample of the study by simple random sampling procedure. Thus the sample size was 101. Data were collected personally by the researcher himself through face to face visit to all the selected farmers during 1^st August, 2014 to 10^th September, 2014. Two focus group discussions also done to acquired deep information. The collected data were systematically recorded, edited, arranged, compiled, tabulated, computerized and analyzed in accordance with the objectives of the study. Different statistical treatments like frequency, range, mean, percentage, distribution, standard deviation, categories and indices etc. were used to describe, represent and explaining the relationships among the variables in this study. In the present study, ten selected characteristics namely age, education, farm size, farming experience, annual income, training experience, communication exposure, organizational participation, agricultural knowledge and fatalism were selected as the independent variable, which measured using the prevailing standard methods. Adaptation strategies practiced by the coastal farmers was dependent variable. To assess farmers' adaptation twenty statements were considered. A-four point rating scale was developed to measure the extent of adaptation towards climate change in affected areas ranked as “regularly”, ?sometimes??, ?seldom" and ?not at all" scored as 3, 2, 1, 0 respectively. The extent of adaptation towards climate change found by the farmers was computed by adding all scores obtained from 20 strategies practiced towards climate change by respondents. The adaptation of climate change score of the respondents ranged from 0 to 60 where zero (0) indicating no adaptation of climate change and 60 indicating maximum adaptation. To find out the relationship between the farmers' adaptation towards effects of climate change on agriculture and the selected characteristics of the farmers, the Pearson's Product Correlation co-efficient (r) was computed.

Source of Information: International Journal of Agriculture Innovations and Research Volume 3, Issue 5, ISSN (Online) 2319-1473

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

The impact of climate change in Bangladesh is dire and they are already taking place. Based on the above findings it can be concluded that there is a continuing need to accelerate activities in connection with increasing education, communication exposure, and agricultural knowledge and reduce fatalism of coastal farmers which directly influence the adaptation to climate change effects on coastal agriculture. Relevant training programmes should be conducted for the farmers to upgrade their understanding of the knowledge about climate change and its effects on coastal agriculture and how to cope up with new climatic condition for agricultural situation. The study also established that farmers' in coastal area of Bangladesh are experiencing various overwhelming effects of climate change on agriculture, directly and indirectly. Coastal farmers were able to put up various adaptation strategies that enable them to cope with the various adverse effects of the climate on coastal agriculture. But adaptation strategies taken by farmers to reduce climate change effects were limited and take some adaptation measures within their economic reach, while those requiring some levels of financial commitments were scarcely employed, and this is a major constraint to adapting to climate change. In order to increase adaptation of farming practices in response to climate change, a number of measures need to be taken both by major intervening agencies, such as governmental organizations (GOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the community-based organizations (CBOs).

Knowledge Management: Journal