13 pages., via online journal., Communication plays a vital role in a developing society as it could be used for developing of perspectives. This study aimed to analyze the communication and perspectives on climate change among layer farmers in San Jose, Batangas, Philippines. Descriptive research design in a quantitative approach, along with distributed survey questionnaires to the respondents in the said municipality were utilized to answer the research objectives. Systematic random sampling was used to get the sample size of the layer farmers. Statistical tools such as frequency/percentage, weighted mean and Pearson’s correlation were also used. The layer farmers were greatly exposed in interpersonal communication platforms. Demonstration, meetings, seminars and trainings were of less extent. Radio, television and cellphones were widely used by the layer farmers, while very few had access on the internet. Furthermore, they agreed on food security, water sufficiency, ecological and environmental stability, human security and knowledge and capacity development. However, they moderately agreed on climate-smart industries and services, and sustainable energy. Findings also showed that there is a significant relationship between the layer farmers’ perspectives to the communication platforms they were exposed to.
16 pages., Article # 6FEA3, via online journal., We examined how the Twin Ports Climate Conversations (TPCC), a community-based climate communication project, is influencing local climate awareness and response. A survey of TPCC participants and subsequent roundtable discussion event were used to explore program impacts, outcomes, and future directions. Results showed that the TPCC project has been effective at increasing awareness and facilitating contacts and may be leading to actions that range from information sharing to personal behavioral changes. Future directions include engaging new audiences and promoting more on-the-ground climate action. TPCC can serve as a model to help other communities start cross-sectoral climate conversations.
12 pages., via online journal., Effective communication of risks involved in the climate change discussion is crucial and despite ambitious protection policies, the possibility of irreversible consequences actually occurring can only be diminished but never ruled out completely. We present a laboratory experiment that studies how residual risk of failure of climate change policies affects willingness to contribute to such policies. Despite prevailing views on people’s risk aversion, we found that contributions were higher at least in the final part of treatments including a residual risk. We interpret this as the product of a psychological process where residual risk puts participants into an ”alarm mode,” keeping their contributions high. We discuss the broad practical implications this might have on the real-world communication of climate change.
Prokopy, Linda S. (author), Arbuckle, J.G. (author), Barnes, Andrew P. (author), Haden, V. R. (author), Hogan, Anthony (author), Niles, Meredith T. (author), and Tyndall, John (author)
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2015
Published:
Springer
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 18 Document Number: D10507
13 pages., via online journal., Climate change has serious implications for the agricultural industry—both in terms of the need to adapt to a changing climate and to modify practices to mitigate for the impacts of climate change. In high-income countries where farming tends to be very intensive and large scale, it is important to understand farmers’ beliefs and concerns about climate change in order to develop appropriate policies and communication strategies. Looking across six study sites—Scotland, Midwestern United States, California, Australia, and two locations in New Zealand—this paper finds that over half of farmers in each location believe that climate change is occurring. However, there is a wide range of beliefs regarding the anthropogenic nature of climate change; only in Australia do a majority of farmers believe that climate change is anthropogenic. In all locations, a majority of farmers believe that climate change is not a threat to local agriculture. The different policy contexts and existing impacts from climate change are discussed as possible reasons for the variation in beliefs. This study compared varying surveys from the different locations and concludes that survey research on farmers and climate change in diverse locations should strive to include common questions to facilitate comparisons.
20 pages., Article 97, Via online journal., Multiple factors constrain smallholder agriculture and farmers’ adaptive capacities under changing climates, including access to information to support context appropriate farm decision-making. Current approaches to geographic information dissemination to smallholders, such as the rural extension model, are limited, yet advancements in internet and communication technologies (ICTs) could help augment these processes through the provision of agricultural geographic information (AGI) directly to farmers. We analysed recent ICT initiatives for communicating climate and agriculture-related information to smallholders for improved livelihoods and climate change adaptation. Through the critical analysis of initiatives, we identified opportunities for the success of future AGI developments. We systematically examined 27 AGI initiatives reported in academic and grey literature (e.g., organisational databases). Important factors identified for the success of initiatives include affordability, language(s), community partnerships, user collaboration, high quality and locally-relevant information through low-tech platforms, organisational trust, clear business models, and adaptability. We propose initiatives should be better-targeted to deliver AGI to regions in most need of climate adaptation assistance, including SE Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. Further assessment of the most effective technological approaches is needed. Initiatives should be independently assessed for evaluation of their uptake and success, and local communities should be better-incorporated into the development of AGI initiatives
14 pages., via online journal., While dealing with weather variability has always been a source of stress for farmers, a generally warmer, wetter climate with the potential for increasingly intensive precipitation poses a threat to long-term farm viability. Knowing how farmers think about increasingly variable weather patterns (IVWP) is important for educators, agency staff, and others to learn how to work with producers on adaptation strategies to protect natural resources and prevent crop failure. In 2011, the University of Maine Cooperative Extension conducted focus group sessions with farmers from seven different commodity groups, five mixed farmer sessions, and two sessions with consultants, educators, and agency staff who work with growers to learn about grower perceptions of environmental changes, and to learn about changes they may be making to their farming operations to protect their operations from IVWP. Farmers discussed over 40 practices that could be construed as adaptation measures to buffer against IVWP. Fruit (apple and blueberry) growers spent the most time on the subject and expressed the most concern about the effects of IVWP, while dairy and potato growers spent the least. Given the divergence of opinion on the subject of climate change that Maine growers expressed, successful outreach education through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Cooperative Extension should likely emphasize short-term risk management, resilience, and stability of farm operations as opposed to communicating the need to adopt strategies based on climate change.
16 pages., via online journal., While previous research into understandings of climate change has usually examined general public perceptions, this study offers an audience-specific departure point. This article analyses how Swedish farmers perceive climate change and how they jointly shape their understandings. The agricultural sector is of special interest because it both contributes to and is directly affected by climate change. Through focus group discussions with Swedish farmers, this study finds that (1) farmers relate to and understand climate change through their own experiences, (2) climate change is understood either as a natural process subject to little or no human influence or as anthropogenic and (3) various communication tools contribute to the formation of natural and anthropogenic climate change frames. The article ends by discussing frame resonance and frame clash in public understanding of climate change and by comparing potential similarities and differences in how various segments of the public make sense of climate change.
13 pages., via online journal., The study explores the impacts of Nepali farmers’ climate change perceptions on their farming practices over the last three decades (1980–2014). Results from a survey with 496 farmers show that nearly all farmers attributed changes in crop varieties and cropping patterns mainly to technological and market-related factors and not to climate change. A comparison between perceptions and meteorological data shows that while perceptions of changes in maximum temperatures did match observed trends, perceptions of changes in minimum temperature and rainfall did not. The results indicate that the climate change message in the past 30 years has not been definite enough to have a consistent impact on either farmers’ perceptions or their farming practices. This may impede farmers’ adaptive capacity in dealing with increasingly severe future climate change impacts. Because of large variations in the micro-climate of the study locations and the locations of the weather stations from which we obtained the meteorological data, the results need to be treated with caution. However, we suggest that for farmers to effectively adapt to climate change, it may be necessary for responsible state and non-state actors to improve their communication on expected climate change impacts.
Van Beurden, Eric K. (author), Kia, Annie M. (author), Hughes, Denise (author), Fuller, Jeffery D. (author), Dietrich, Uta (author), Howton, Kirsty (author), and Kavooru, Suman (author)
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2011
Published:
Australia: Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 32 Document Number: D10631
7 pages., via online journal., Human health is indivisible from ecological health and there is
increasing focus on climate change as the major preventable threat
to the health of humanity. The direct associations between climate
change and population health are well documented, as are potential
co-benefits of climate action.1-6
Australia is entering a period of climatic extremes.7,8 The socially stable
and agriculturally productive Northern Rivers region of New South
Wales is set to experience increasing temperatures, storms, flooding and
erosion.9,10 This will likely be compounded by changes in socio/political,
environmental, agricultural and economic systems with resultant
impacts on social and environmental determinants of health.11,12
How might a rural population of 280,000 respond? In 2007,
community resilience to climate change was neither a state nor
federal health promotion priority. The former North Coast Area
Health Service Health Promotion (NCHP) adopted one promising
direction: to foster a collaboration of existing organisations to
accelerate regional action on climate change.13-15 The former NSW
Department of Climate Change funded the pilot project: Resilience:
building health from regional responses to climate change. The
project incorporated principles from Complex Adaptive Systems
(CAS) theory with emphasis on the concepts of resilience and
11 pages., Via online journal article., As climate change is expected to significantly affect agricultural systems globally, agricultural farm advisors have been increasingly recognized as an important resource in helping farmers address these challenges. While there have been many studies exploring the climate change belief and risk perceptions as well as behaviors of both farmers and agricultural farm advisors, there are very few studies that have explored how these perceptions relate to actual climate impacts in agriculture. Here we couple survey data from United States Department of Agriculture farm service employees (n = 6, 514) with historical crop loss data across the United States to explore the relationship of actual climate-related crop losses on farm to farm advisor perceptions of climate change and future farmer needs. Using structural equation modelling we find that among farm advisors that work directly with farms on disaster and crop loss issues, there is a significant positive relationship between crop loss and perceived weather variability changes, while across all farm advisors crop loss is associated with reduced likelihood to believe in anthropogenic climate change. Further, we find that weather variability perceptions are the most consistently and highly correlated with farm advisors' perceptions about the need for farm adaptation and future farmer needs. These results suggest that seeing crop loss may not lead to climate change belief, but may drive weather variability perceptions, which in turn affect farm adaptation perceptions. This lends further evidence to the debate over terminology in climate change communication and outreach, suggesting that weather variability may be the most salient among agricultural advisors.
