Farmer beliefs and concerns about climate change and attitudes toward adaptation and mitigation: Evidence from Iowa

Abstract

Agriculture is both vulnerable to climate change impacts and a significant source of greenhouse gases. Increasing agriculture's resilience and reducing its contribution to climate change are societal priorities. Survey data collected from Iowa farmers are analyzed to answer the related research questions: (1) do farmers support adaptation and mitigation actions, and (2) do beliefs and concerns about climate change influence those attitudes. Results indicate that farmers who were concerned about the impacts of climate change on agriculture and attributed it to human activities had more positive attitudes toward both adaptive and mitigative management strategies. Farmers who believed that climate change is not a problem because human ingenuity will enable adaptations and who did not believe climate change is occurring or believed it is a natural phenomenon-a substantial percentage of farmers-tended not to support mitigation.

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).…”

“…To date, the majority of existing studies examining farmer's perspectives and responses to climate change either measure likelihood to adopt a practice, support mitigation and adaptation initiatives in the future (Niles et al 2013Arbuckle et al 2013) or examine the actual adoption of a practice (Wood et al 2014;Kristjanson et al 2012). Very few studies have aimed to determine how intention to adopt a behavior differs from actual adoption, and whether different factors drive intended and actual behavior.…”

What would farmers do? Adaptation intentions under a Corn Belt climate change scenario

“…Ajzen notes that attitudes should be measured directly in reference to a specific behavior and are defined as the ''degree to which a person has favorable or unfavorable evaluation or appraisal of the behavior in question' ' (1991, p. 10). Additionally, there is evidence that farmers' beliefs (described as necessary precursors to attitudes by Fishbein and Ajzen 2010) about the potential severity of climate impacts and causes of climate change can influence their support for adaptive and/or mitigative actions (Howden et al 2007;Arbuckle et al 2013b;Hyland et al 2015). The second category for non-climatic forces and conditions is risk perceptions and strategies.…”

“…The second category for non-climatic forces and conditions is risk perceptions and strategies. In general, farmer perceptions of the potential risks associated with increased weather variability due to climate change have been shown to influence their support for adaptation (Arbuckle et al 2013b). Actual physical vulnerability associated with experiences of extreme weather has been shown to increase the perception of risks associated with climate change (Brody et al 2008) in addition to other political and social values (Cutler 2015).…”

“…Environmental risks have also helped to explain the adoption of cover crops, no-till, and increased use of tile drainage in the US Midwest (e.g., Morton et al 2015). Generally, perceived risks have a strong and positive relationship with support for public responses and individual behavioral intentions to address climate change impacts (O'Connor et al 1999;Zahran et al 2006;Arbuckle et al 2013b;Hyland et al 2015). Farmers also employ a number of risk management strategies to mitigate both weather-related and financial risks associated with their agricultural production systems.…”