Abstract
Although the need for agriculture to adapt to climate change is well established, there is relatively little research within a UK context that explores how the risks associated with climate change are perceived at the farm level, nor how farmers are adapting their businesses to improve resilience in the context of climate change. Based on 31 in-depth, qualitative interviews (15 with farmers and 16 with stakeholders including advisors, consultants and industry representatives) this paper begins to address this gap by exploring experiences, attitudes and responses to extreme weather and climate change. The results point to a mixed picture of resilience to climate risks. All interviewees had experienced or witnessed negative impacts from extreme weather events in recent years but concern was expressed that too few farm businesses are taking sufficient action to increase their business resilience to extreme weather and climate change. Many farmers interviewed for this research did not perceive adaptation to be a priority and viewed the risks as either too uncertain and/or too long-term to warrant any significant investment of time or money at present when many are preoccupied with short-term profitability and business survival. We identified a range of issues and barriers that are constraining improved resilience across the industry, including some lack of awareness about the type and cost-effectiveness of potential adaptation options. Nevertheless, we also found evidence of positive actions being taken by many, whether in direct response to climate change/extreme weather or as a result of other drivers such as soil health, policy and legislation, cost reduction, productivity and changing consumer demands. Our findings reveal a number of actions that can help enable adaption at the farm level including improved industry collaboration, farmer-to-farmer learning, and the need for tools and support that take into account the specificities of different farming systems and that can be easily tailored or interpreted to help farmers understand what climate change means for their particular farm and, crucially, what they can do to increase their resilience to both extreme weather and longer term climate risks.
Highlights
The need for the agricultural sector to manage the risks associated with climate change is well established, but understanding how these risks are perceived and responded to at the farm level – i.e. by those directly involved producing our food – has been a relatively neglected issue in recent research, certainly within the UK context
Perceptions about the relative risks and urgency of adapting varied considerably. Overall, they viewed climate change as a threat or an opportunity for agriculture, participants were almost split in their responses, with around a third of both farmers and stakeholders seeing it as an opportunity, around a third seeing it as a threat, and a third seeing it as both a threat and an opportunity
Whilst it may be impossible to offer individualised information to farmers on a large scale, there is clearly a need to offer tools and support that take into account the specificities of different farming systems and that can be tailored or interpreted to help farmers understand what climate change means for their particular farm and, crucially, what they can do to increase their resilience to both extreme weather and longer term climate risks
Summary
The need for the agricultural sector to manage the risks associated with climate change is well established, but understanding how these risks are perceived and responded to at the farm level – i.e. by those directly involved producing our food – has been a relatively neglected issue in recent research, certainly within the UK context. Farmers have always had a close and experiential relationship with the weather (Osborne and Evans, 2019) and, given the reliance of their livelihoods on weather and climate, they might be expected to be aware of, and responsive to, changing conditions The nature of their occupation may make them more – or at least differently - sensitive to climatic changes compared to the wider population. Whilst research with the general public has repeatedly shown greater concern around increasing rainfall/flooding than heatwaves/drought (Taylor et al, 2019; Harcourt et al, 2019), reduced summer rainfall/drought raises particular concern for farmers due to the significant risk it poses to crop yields (Tate et al, 2010)
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