Farmers’ Climate Change Adaptation Strategies for Reducing the Risk of Rice Production: Evidence from Rajshahi District in Bangladesh

Shahjahan Ali,Csaba Fogarassy,Elias Hossain,Ataul Gani Osmani,Bikash Chandra Ghosh

doi:10.3390/agronomy11030600

Abstract

A lack of adaptive capacities for climate change prevents poor farmers from diversifying agricultural production in Bangladesh’s drought-resilient areas. Climate change adaptation strategies can reduce the production risk relating to unforeseen climatic shocks and increase farmers’ food, income, and livelihood security. This paper investigates rice farmers’ adaptive capacities to adapt climate change strategies to reduce the rice production risk. The study collected 400 farm-level micro-data of rice farmers with the direct cooperation of Rajshahi District. The survey was conducted during periods between June and July of 2020. Rice farmers’ adaptive capacities were estimated quantitatively by categorizing the farmers as high, moderate, and low level adapters to climate change adaptation strategies. In this study, a Cobb–Douglas production function was used to measure the effects of farmers’ adaptive capacities on rice production. The obtained results show that farmers are moderately adaptive in terms of adaptation strategies on climate change and the degree of adaptation capacities. Agronomic practices such as the quantity of fertilizer used, the amount of labor, the farm’s size, and extension contacts have a substantial impact on rice production. This study recommends that a farmer more significantly adjusts to adaptation strategies on climate change to reduce rice production. These strategies will help farmers to reduce the risk and produce higher quality rice. Consequently, rice farmers should facilitate better extension services and change the present agronomic practice to attain a higher adaptation status. It can be very clearly seen that low adaptability results in lower rice yields.

Highlights

Global scientists have repeatedly shown that climate change is a significant problem for both developed and developing countries, as the pace of climate change is much faster than previously predicted [1]
This study describes the adaptive capacities of farmers engaged in rice production in relation to adaptation strategies addressing climate change and the degree of adaptive capacities to reduce the rice production development risk
The outcome of this study shows that farmers in Rajshahi, Bangladesh are highly adaptive to changing the date of the plantation, varieties of rice that mature early, and types of drought-tolerant rice

Summary

Introduction

Global scientists have repeatedly shown that climate change is a significant problem for both developed and developing countries, as the pace of climate change is much faster than previously predicted [1]. It has been demonstrated that agricultural productivity worldwide has been dramatically altered by regular climate change [2]. It has been estimated that climate change will impact the world food security by the middle of the. Climate change positively affects agricultural production or the crop yield in higher-income, high-latitude, and mid-latitude countries. A negative effect on the agriculture sector’s output is faced by lower-income and lower-latitude countries [4]. Because most South Asian countries are low-income, lower-latitude countries, recurrent climate change harms most people’s food security in these regions [5]—the production of

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