Role of institutions to improve farmer’s resilience in facing climate change

Abstract

When exposed to climate change, farmers will get vulnerable and sensitive due to their low adaptation capacity. The latter can in fact be increased through institutional strengthening, as strong institutions will enable farmers to have an opportunity to succeed by improving their performance. This study examines the institutional form of farmer self-organisation and resources access in Banyumas Regency. The target population is comprised of farmers affected by climate change. This study uses SWOT to analyse farmers’ self-organisation. The results showed that by strengthening farmers’ self-organisation, young farmers become aware that agriculture should be taken as the main livelihood and that they have social capital and resources to increase their farming capacity. Farmers’ weaknesses stem from their low level of education and family income. The opportunities of farmers could be gained from having a network to strengthen their farming business and easy access to production factors. Nevertheless, farmers are also threatened by a number of factors—i.e., the absence of norms in the community to regulate land and water use as well as local wisdom to support farming, existing institutions in the community that do not support farming optimally, and the average production per hectare that is still below the national average production. The policy implication is that farmers must increase their capacity and build strong institutions to increase their resilience in facing the climate change.