학술논문
Do farmers care about climate change? Evidence from five major grain producing areas of China
Document Type
article
Author
Source
Journal of Integrative Agriculture, Vol 18, Iss 6, Pp 1402-1414 (2019)
Subject
Language
English
ISSN
2095-3119
Abstract
Using a logistic model, this paper empirically investigated farmers' perception of climate change and its determinants based on a field survey of 1 350 rural households across five major grain producing provinces in China. The results show: i) There is an apparent difference in perception levels for long-term temperature and precipitation changes. Specifically, 57.4% of farmers perceived the long-term temperature change correctly, but only 29.7% of farmers perceived the long-term precipitation change correctly; ii) The factors influencing the farmers' perceptions are almost completely different between precipitation and temperature, the former are mostly agriculture related, while latter are mostly non-agriculture related, except for farm size; and iii) Farmers are not expected to pay more attention to long-term precipitation changes over the crop growing seasons, because less than 30% of farmers can correctly perceive long-term precipitation change. Therefore, to improve the accuracy of farmers' perceptions of climate change, the government is recommended to: i) enhance education and training programs; ii) speed up land transfer and expand household land farm size; iii) develop farmer cooperative organizations; iv) invest more in agricultural infrastructure, specifically in major grain producing regions; and v) improve the agricultural environment and increase farming income.