Climate Change—Between “Myth and Truth” in Romanian Farmers’ Perception

Abstract

The study analyzes the awareness of the effects of climate change on agriculture and the measures that should be implemented in this regard from the farmer’s perspective, taking into account the financial and promotional measures supported by the European Union for farmers. Thus, the study tracks the level of openness of farmers to implementing the measures that European policy makers will take in the coming period. Taking into account the fact that agriculture plays a particularly important economic role, due to the share of agricultural products in Romania’s total exports, particularly in plant production, a quantitative survey was carried out among Romanian farmers, using a questionnaire as an instrument, with a total of 407 respondents. The farmers interviewed undoubtedly recognize that the problems they face are caused by the effects of climate change and are willing to adapt, seek and implement the necessary solutions. The most problematic climatic phenomenon identified by farmers (71.5%) is drought, with negative effects on their activity. At the same time, 54.15% of the respondents believe that the effects of climate change are affecting their business through lower yields. Although the farmers interviewed are willing to implement solutions to combat climate effects, 80.34% of them are not considering revising cropping patterns, giving more importance to market demand than to practices that protect the environment. In conclusion, as long as farmers feel and understand the effects of climate change, it cannot be a myth, especially if they are willing to adapt to these challenges.

Financing the Agri-Environmental Policy: Consequences on the Economic Growth and Environmental Quality in Romania

“…All this explains the negative influence that the AE1 indicator has on the evolution of the GDP. These results are in agreement with previous research that considers irrigation to be a factor that can contribute to an increase in agricultural production, and implicitly the contribution of agriculture to the GDP [ 37 , 55 ].…”

The key to the development of agricultural cooperatives in Romania from the perspective of those who run them

“…In order to validate the established hypotheses, the degree of association between the sector of activity of cooperatives/ number of cooperative members/ average age of cooperative members/ current financial situation of cooperatives and the main constraints faced by agricultural cooperatives were determined. For this purpose, the Chi-square value was determined as well as Cramer's V coefficient to establish the strength of the relationships between variables (Micu et al, 2022a).…”

“…By the end of 2020, Romania has benefited from the two National Rural Development Programmes, programmes aimed at rejuvenating generations of farmers, which is also evidenced by the highest number of beneficiaries of European funds in agriculture. These measures have been taken, due to the high degree of ageing of the rural population, and implicitly of people engaged in agricultural activities (Tudor et al, 2022; Micu et al, 2022a; Tavenner and Crane, 2019). H4.…”

“…The survey includes a total of 182 respondents, made up of representatives of agricultural cooperatives in Romania, asked by the agricultural associative environment. The snowball method was also used to distribute the questionnaire to other representatives of agricultural cooperatives (Micu et al, 2022b).…”

“…A solution to increase the economic size of subsistence and medium farms can be their organization into cooperatives, performing this complete system (production, processing, marketing), contributing to food security, taking into account the current context caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the war in Ukraine, which puts pressure on food security (Micu et al, 2016; Micu et al, 2022a).…”