Socio-cultural aspects of farmers’ perception of the risk of climate change and variability in Central Ethiopia

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is a dearth of evidence on the socio-cultural aspects of climate change risk perception in developing countries. This study investigates the variation in farmers’ perception of the risks of climate change and variability by their socio-cultural characteristics. Data were collected from 810 randomly selected households in central Ethiopia using a structured questionnaire. Polling, a maximum likelihood prediction method of multivariate analysis that jointly evaluates the combined roles of different variables, allowing for non-parametric interactions, was used to analyse the data. The results show that households with a high risk perception have high accurate knowledge about climate change, experience of climatic events, value both societal and individual responsibilities to reduce the impact of climate change, and reside in the midland agro-ecological settings. On the other hand, a low descriptive norm, low social capital, lack of access to media, low level of education, and valuing autonomy characterize households with a low risk perception. The findings entail that communication strategies focusing on evidence-based knowledge about causes and consequences of and responses to climate change, past experience of climatic events, as well as fostering self-transcendence and openness-to-change values raise risk perception to engage farmers in adaptation actions.