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Farmer flexibility concerning future rotation planning is affected by the framing of climate predictions
- Source :
- Climate Risk Management, Vol 34, Iss, Pp 100356-(2021), Climate Risk Management, Climate Risk Management, Elsevier, 2021, 34, ⟨10.1016/j.crm.2021.100356⟩, Climate Risk Management, 2021, 34, ⟨10.1016/j.crm.2021.100356⟩
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Arable crops are typically grown in annual rotations. Diverse rotations can support ecosystem services, provide economic resilience and support adaptation to climate change. Our aim was to assess farmers' attitudes to planning and diversifying crop rotations, focusing on their responses in the face of contrasting climate viewpoints. We interviewed 75 farmers from four regions along a latitudinal gradient from the south of the UK to the south of France. We used a semi-structured questionnaire with face-to-face interviews and asked farmers to respond to two narrative viewpoints of climate change impacts: one viewpoint focused on opportunities, the other on constraints. We found in all four regions that farmers' use rotations, and the crops within rotations, to achieve their main objectives of financial stability and improved soil health. Most farmers (79-100% depending on region) said they had experienced climate change, and many (54-83%) had already implemented changes in their farming practices. We did not find a difference in these results based on latitude. However, farmers' self-reported outlook was mostly optimistic in southern UK and become progressively more pessimistic further south. Overall, most farmers predicted that they would diversify and lengthen rotations in response to climate change. However, when presented with a viewpoint of climate change impacts focusing on opportunities, more farmers were likely to diversify and lengthen, and fewer were likely to shorten rotations, compared to a viewpoint presenting constraints from these impacts. Crucially, here we show that the presentation of climate change affects the ways in which farmers predict how they will respond to climate change. Diversified rotations would align with multiple other economic and environmental benefits. Therefore, it is essential to consider the way in which climate change impacts are communicated, and the effect on farmers' behavior, when designing measures to support environmentally-sustainable adaptation to climate change.
- Subjects :
- Atmospheric Science
Rotations
Natural resource economics
media_common.quotation_subject
Geography, Planning and Development
Climate change
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Ecosystem services
03 medical and health sciences
Meteorology. Climatology
Framing (construction)
030304 developmental biology
media_common
2. Zero hunger
Flexibility (engineering)
0303 health sciences
Global and Planetary Change
business.industry
04 agricultural and veterinary sciences
15. Life on land
Viewpoints
Agronomy
Planning
Geography
Agriculture and Soil Science
Arable farming
13. Climate action
Agriculture
[SDE]Environmental Sciences
040103 agronomy & agriculture
0401 agriculture, forestry, and fisheries
Psychological resilience
QC851-999
Arable land
business
Outlook
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 22120963
- Volume :
- 34
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Climate Risk Management
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....33491f0688fdb866379f35b8e7733a5b
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2021.100356