Office for Environmental Programs - Theses
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ItemAn assessment of farmers' perceptions of and adaption to climate change risk: a case of canola farmers in the Shepparton Region, Victoria, Australia( 2013)This research on the assessment of farmer's perceptions and adaption to climate change was conducted in the Shepparton district of Victoria, Australia. The main objective of this constructivist research is to examine canola farmer's perceptions of climate change, and their strategies to adapt to the risks that may be involved because of this. The study considers two specific objectives: to identify the canola famers' perceptions and adaptation to climate change risks and impacts; and to identify factors influencing their perceptions and adaptation to these risks. This qualitative inquiry used semi-structured interviews with key participants and phenomenological methodology. One face-to-face and five phone interviews were conducted with canola farmers of the Birchip Cropping Group (BCG). Data was thematically analyzed and manually coded. The study highlights divisions of canola farmers about the existence and cause of climate change, an understanding of the need for action and a high willingness to adapt, as well as large disparities in usage of climate change terminology. Factors such as experience and farm size were negatively correlated to farmer's perception and adaptation to climate change. It also shows that a decrease in moisture is the foremost driver in variations in canola crop production, availability of water resources was a factor in choices for adaptation, and changing to drought-resistant canola varieties and strategic sowing were considered as future and current adaptation measures respectively. Furthermore, some farmers have considered leaving the canola growing industry due to loss of moisture. The study recommends four basic measures to be undertaken. Firstly, there is a need for decision makers and scientist to design programs to break the terminology boundaries of climate change risk and weather variability, and remove the uncertainty among small farming group such as canola farmers through effective communication on climate change to eliminate the skepticism related to the idea of climate change risk. Secondly, there is a need to reshape the framework of climate change communication to flow down to local life of individual farmers such as daily life practices and traditional beliefs that define small group of farmers in Shepparton. Thirdly, Scientist and decision makers in Shepparton has to increase the means of how they could better communicate climate change matters to agriculture community such as small group of canola farmers. Lastly, more research both social and scientific on climate change and agriculture on areas of perception and better adaptation in canola cropping within Shepparton are needed to assist decision makers to come up with tangible solution to solve the problems of climate change in Shepparton rather than depending on literatures or related study in another location.