Social risk perceptions of climate change: A case study of farmers and agricultural advisors in northern California

Crop and livestock farmers must respond to climate change, including a range of physical and cultural impacts and risks. In rural northern California, farmers face extreme drought and catastrophic wildfires with increasing frequency. I draw on an extended case study of farmers and agricultural advisors in Siskiyou County to understand how rural agriculturalists perceive risks when navigating climate change discourses. While farmers are changing their management practices in response to the physical effects of climate change, many perceive substantial social risks within their communities if they align themselves publicly with climate change beliefs or actions. Perceived social consequences included loss of access to the benefits of membership in formal and informal farming groups. Efforts focused on educating or convincing farmers of climate science may, in some contexts, increase rather than decrease the perceived social risks of climate action. The framing of climate policies, programs, and practices – especially by public agricultural advisors like Cooperative Extension Advisors and local USDA staff (e.g., Farm Service Agency) – is important not only for increasing farmer participation, but also for reducing perceived social risks associated with climate change. Interventions that focus on livelihood impacts and validate existing land stewardship-oriented values have more potential to increase the pace and scale of climate change mitigation and adaptation in agriculture.     

Smallholder farmer cropping decisions related to climate variability across multiple regions

A long history of household-level research has provided important local-level insights into climate adaptation strategies in the agricultural sector. It remains unclear to what extent these strategies are generalizable or vary across regions. In this study we ask about three potential key factors influencing farming households’ ability to adapt: access to weather information, household and agricultural production-related assets, and participation in local social institutions. We use a 12-country data set from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to explore the links between these three potential drivers of agricultural change and the likelihood that farmers made farm-associated changes, such as adopting improved crop varieties, increasing fertilizer use, investing in improved land management practices, and changing the timing of agricultural activities. We find evidence that access to weather information, assets, and participation in social institutions are associated with households that have reported making farming changes in recent years, although these results vary across countries and types of practices. Understanding these drivers and outcomes of farm-associated changes across different socio-economic and environmental conditions is critical for ongoing dialogues for climate-resilient strategies and policies for increasing the adaptive capacity of smallholders under climate change.     

A conceptual framework for analysing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes

Governance failures are at the origin of many resource management problems. In particular climate change and the concomitant increase of extreme weather events has exposed the inability of current governance regimes to deal with present and future challenges. Still our knowledge about resource governance regimes and how they change is quite limited. This paper develops a conceptual framework addressing the dynamics and adaptive capacity of resource governance regimes as multi-level learning processes. The influence of formal and informal institutions, the role of state and non-state actors, the nature of multi-level interactions and the relative importance of bureaucratic hierarchies, markets and networks are identified as major structural characteristics of governance regimes. Change is conceptualized as social and societal learning that proceeds in a stepwise fashion moving from single to double to triple loop learning. Informal networks are considered to play a crucial role in such learning processes. The framework supports flexible and context sensitive analysis without being case study specific.First empirical evidence from water governance supports the assumptions made on the dynamics of governance regimes and the usefulness of the chosen approach. More complex and diverse governance regimes have a higher adaptive capacity. However, it is still an open question how to overcome the state of single-loop learning that seem to characterize many attempts to adapt to climate change. Only further development and application of shared conceptual frameworks taking into account the real complexity of governance regimes can generate the knowledge base needed to advance current understanding to a state that allows giving meaningful policy advice.     

The implications of ignoring smallholder agriculture in climate-financed forestry projects: empirical evidence from two REDD+ pilot projects

ABSTRACT

Changes in agricultural practices can play a pivotal role in climate change mitigation by reducing the need for land use change as one of the biggest sources of GHG emissions, and by enabling carbon sequestration in farmers’ fields. Expansion of smallholder and commercial agriculture is often one of the main driving forces behind deforestation and forest degradation. However, mitigation programmes such as REDD+ are geared towards conservation efforts in the forestry sector without prominently taking into account smallholder agricultural interests in project design and implementation. REDD+ projects often build on existing re- and afforestation projects without major changes in their principles, interests and assumptions. Informed by case study research and interviews with national and international experts, we illustrate with examples from Ethiopia and Indonesia how REDD+ projects are implemented, how they fail to adequately incorporate the demands of smallholder farmers and how this leads to a loss of livelihoods and diminishing interest in participating in REDD+ by local farming communities. The study shows how the conservation-based benefits and insecure funding base in REDD+ projects do not compensate for the contraction in livelihoods from agriculture. Combined with exclusive benefit-sharing mechanisms, this results in an increased pressure on forest resources, diverging from the principal objective of REDD+. We note a gap between the REDD+ narratives at international level (i.e. coupling development with a climate agenda) and the livelihood interests of farming communities on the ground. We argue that without incorporating agricultural interests and a review of financial incentives in the design of future climate finance mechanisms, objectives of both livelihood improvements and GHG emission reductions will be missed.

Key policy insights

• REDD+ is positioned as a promising tool to meet climate, conservation and development targets. However, these expectations are not being met in practice as the interests of smallholder farmers are poorly addressed.

• REDD+ policy developers and implementers need more focus on understanding the interests and dynamics of smallholder agriculturalists to enable inclusive, realistic and long-lasting projects.

• For REDD+ to succeed, funders need to consider how to better ensure long-term livelihood security for farming communities.

     

Integrating farmers’ adaptive knowledge into flood management and adaptation policies in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta: A social learning perspective

Flood management and adaptation are important elements in sustaining farming production in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD). While over the past decades hydraulic development introduced by the central government has substantially benefited the rural economy, it has simultaneously caused multiple barriers to rural adaptation. We investigate the relational practices (i.e., learning interactions) taking place within and across the flood management and adaptation boundaries from the perspective of social learning. We explore whether and how adaptive knowledge (i.e., experimental and experiential knowledge) derived from farmers’ everyday adaptation practices contributes to local flood management and adaptation policies in the selected areas. We collected data through nine focus groups with farmers and thirty-three interviews with government officials, environmental scientists, and farmers. Qualitative analysis suggests that such processes are largely shaped by the institutional context where the boundary is embedded. This study found that while the highly bureaucratic operation of flood management creates constraints for feedback, the more informal arrangements set in place at the local level provide flexible platforms conducive to open communication, collaborative learning, and exchange of knowledge among the different actors. This study highlights the pivotal role of shadow systems that provide space for establishing and maintaining informal interactions and relationships between social actors (e.g., interactions between farmers and extension officials) in stimulating and influencing, from the bottom-up, the emergence of adaptive knowledge about flood management and adaptation in a local context.     

Exploring earth system governance: A case study of floodplain management along the Tisza river in Hungary

This paper discusses a recently proposed conceptualisation of ‘earth system governance’ by applying it to floodplain management in the Hungarian Tisza river basin. By doing so it aims to improve our understanding of governance systems facilitating adaptation to a changing world. The conceptualisation of earth system governance consists of three elements: problem structure, principles and research challenges. These three elements are assessed using results from actor interviews and policy review. A regional example of natural resources management is found to be a valid case for earth system governance research. The proposed conceptualisation of earth system governance explains well the main problems, barriers and opportunities for adapting floodplain management to climate change in the Tisza region. Problem structure analysis highlights how previous socio-economic and political orders continue to shape expectations and patterns of conduct. Current barriers can be attributed to a lack of the key governance principles credibility, stability, inclusiveness and adaptiveness. Interviewees perceived the lack of credibility and effective cooperation between organisations as the largest barrier. The research challenges proposed for earth system governance agree well with opportunities identified for adapting Tisza floodplain management, calling for inclusion of actors beyond governments and state agencies, and equitable resource allocation in particular. The analysis suggests that an additional challenge for earth system governance is the prioritisation of actions to support an existing governance system and its actors in adapting.     

Vulnerability and adaptation of African rural populations to hydro-climate change: experience from fishing communities in the Inner Niger Delta (Mali)

In this paper we examine ways Sahelian floodplain fishers have adapted to the strong environmental variations that have affected the region in the last two decades. We analyse their vulnerability and adaptive capacity in the face of expected changes in rainfall combined with the predicted effects of dam construction. Data from the Inner Niger Delta in Mali were used to show that fishers were highly sensitive to past and recent variations in the hydro-climatic conditions. Moreover, it appears their traditional livelihood strategies, although diversified, sophisticated and well suited to historical conditions, offer a limited set of options to adapt to increased environmental constraints. For fish-dependent households that have adopted a mixed set of activities through farming, the high seasonality and constraints characterizing both their main activities (fishing and farming) does not allow switching between activities. For those households that undertake seasonal fishing migrations, there is little opportunity to modify migration routes or find new settlements sites inside the delta because of the high population density in this area. In sum, although the adoption of diversified and spatially discrete patterns in livelihood activities is often presented as a strategy to reduce vulnerability, such a strategy does not appear sufficient to allow fishers of the delta to successfully face the increasing constraints associated with the changes in hydro-climatic conditions. In such a context, fishing communities will be driven towards more drastic strategies of adaptation and/or coping such as switching to new activities based on agricultural innovations or emigration from the delta. Both strategies present many hazards, particularly in the absence of supportive public policy.     

Limits to adaptation to interacting global change risks among smallholder rice farmers in Northwest Costa Rica

In this paper, we discuss the theoretical relationships among interacting global change risks, valued livelihood goals, and adaptation limits. We build from research on the impacts of multiple and interacting global change risks in lesser-developed countries and seek to understand household adaptation limits in agrarian communities. We ask: What are valued livelihood goals among smallholder farmers in Northwest Costa Rica? How do socio-economic determinants of adaptive capacities determine their ability to meet these goals in the face of the impacts of interacting global change risks? Our data were based on focus groups, interviews, survey responses from 94 smallholder farmers, government statistics, and published literature. We analyzed our data using qualitative content analysis and quantitative logistic regression models. Our analysis showed that farmers perceived rice production as an identity, and that they were being forced to consider limits to their abilities to adapt to maintain that identity. We found that farm size, cattle ownership, years spent farming, and household income variety were determinants of their abilities to remain in rice production while maintaining sufficient levels of livelihood security. We also showed that for those households most vulnerable to water scarcity, their ability to successfully adapt to meet valued livelihood goals is diminished because adaptation to water scarcity increases vulnerability to decreased rice-market access. In this way, they become trapped by the inability to reduce their vulnerability to risks of the interaction between global changes and therefore abandon valued identities and livelihoods.     

Transitions toward co-management: The process of marine resource management devolution in three east African countries

Communities are increasingly empowered with the ability and responsibility of working with national governments to make decisions about marine resources in decentralized co-management arrangements. This transition toward decentralized management represents a changing governance landscape. This paper explores the transition to decentralisation in marine resource management systems in three East African countries. The paper draws upon expert opinion and literature from both political science and linked social-ecological systems fields to guide exploration of five key governance transition concepts in each country: (1) drivers of change; (2) institutional arrangements; (3) institutional fit; (4) actor interactions; and (5) adaptive management. Key findings are that decentralized management in the region was largely donor-driven and only partly transferred power to local stakeholders. However, increased accountability created a degree of democracy in regards to natural resource governance that was not previously present. Additionally, increased local-level adaptive management has emerged in most systems and, to date, this experimental management has helped to change resource user's views from metaphysical to more scientific cause-and-effect attribution of changes to resource conditions.     

Panarchy of an indigenous agroecosystem in the globalized market: The quinoa production in the Bolivian Altiplano

Agricultural globalization is blamed for destructive impacts on small farms in developing countries. Yet, many local societies are proactive in the face of these changes and show high adaptive capacity. Investigating their transformations with an integrative perspective and enough hindsight may reveal some of the bases of their resilience and adaptive capacity. Using field data and the panarchy concept of resilience theory, we analyzed the territorial and social dynamics of quinoa growers’ communities in southern Bolivia over the last four decades, a case study of regime shift in a poverty-stricken rural society which deliberately entered the global food market. Linking the dynamics of the household economy to the territorial and social subsystems over several decades, we gained insights into the interactions that shaped the rise of quinoa production in the region. We found that a vivid tradition of mobility allowing for pluriactivity on- and off-farm, combined with community self-governance, explains how local populations succeeded in articulating individual agency with collective control over their commons of land, seed resources, and social rules. Our vulnerability analysis points to landscape homogenization, social inequity, and increased dependence on external factors as potential sources of unsustainability. We conclude that, to cope with the changes of unprecedented magnitude they are facing, local producers should retain social cohesion and autonomous governance, without giving up on their heritage of mobility and economic redundancy. As regards theory, we identified cross-scale subsystem configurations critical for regime shifts, and confirm the value of panarchy in capturing complex socioecological dynamics.     

Learning effects of interactive decision-making processes for climate change adaptation

Learning is gaining attention in relation to governance processes for contemporary environmental challenges; however, scholarship at the nexus of learning and environmental governance lacks clarity and understanding about how to define and measure learning, and the linkages between learning, social interactions, and environment. In response, this study aimed to advance and operationalize a typology of learning in an environmental governance context, and examined if a participatory decision-making process (adaptive co-management) for climate change adaptation fostered learning. Three types of learning were identified: cognitive learning, related to the acquisition of new or the structuring of existing knowledge; normative learning, which concerns a shift in viewpoints, values or paradigms, and relational learning, referring to an improved understanding of others’ mindsets, enhanced trust and ability to cooperate. A robust mixed methods approach with a focus on quantitative measures including concept map analysis, social network analysis, and self-reflective questions, was designed to gauge indicators for each learning type. A participatory decision-making process for climate change adaptation was initiated with stakeholders in the Niagara region, Canada. A pseudo-control group was used to minimize external contextual influences on results. Clear empirical evidence of cognitive and relational learning was gained; however, the results from normative learning measures were inconclusive. The learning typology and measurement method operationalized in this research advances previous treatments of learning in relation to participatory decision-making processes, and supports adaptive co-management as a governance strategy that fosters learning and adaptive capacity.     

The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the municipal level: Evidence from floodplain management programs in the United States

This article provides a quantitative test of the relationship between adaptive capacity and socio-economic status (SES) at the municipal level. Local participation in a U.S. floodplain management program, the Community Rating System (CRS), is used as an indicator of adaptive capacity. The relationship between aggregated measures of SES and CRS participation is tested using probit, OLS and tobit models. The analysis indicates that socio-economic characteristics of a municipality's population are associated with the capacity of municipal leaders to effect collective action in response to environmental challenges. More theoretical work and case studies are needed to fully explain the reasons for this association.     

Mapping adaptive capacity and smallholder agriculture: applying expert knowledge at the landscape scale

The impacts of climate change exacerbate the myriad challenges faced by smallholder farmers in the Tropics. In many of these same regions, there is a lack of current, consistent, and spatially-explicit data, which severely limits the ability to locate smallholder communities, map their adaptive capacity, and target adaptation measures to these communities. To explore the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers in three data-poor countries in Central America, we leveraged expert input through in-depth mapping interviews to locate agricultural landscapes, identify smallholder farming systems within them, and characterize different components of farmer adaptive capacity. We also used this input to generate an index of adaptive capacity that allows for comparison across countries and farming systems. Here, we present an overview of the expert method used, followed by an examination of our results, including the intercountry variation in expert knowledge and the characterization of adaptive capacity for both subsistence and smallholder coffee farmers. While this approach does not replace the need to collect regular and consistent data on farming systems (e.g. agricultural census), our study demonstrates a rapid assessment approach for using expert input to fill key data gaps, enable trans-boundary comparisons, and to facilitate the identification of the most vulnerable smallholder communities for adaptation planning in data-poor environments that are typical of tropical regions. One potential benefit from incorporating this approach is that it facilitates the systematic consideration of field-based and regional experience into assessments of adaptive capacity, contributing to the relevance and utility of adaptation plans.     

Co-productive governance: A relational framework for adaptive governance

Adaptive governance focuses our attention on the relationships between science and management, whereby the so-called ‘gaps’ between these groups are seen to hinder effective adaptive responses to biophysical change. Yet the relationships between science and governance, knowledge and action, remain under theorized in discussions of adaptive governance, which largely focuses on abstract design principles or preferred institutional arrangements. In contrast, the metaphor of co-production highlights the social and political processes through which science, policy, and practice co-evolve. Co-production is invoked as a normative goal (Mitchell et al., 2004) and analytical lens (Jasanoff, 2004a, Jasanoff, 2004b), both of which provide useful insight into the processes underpinning adaptive governance. This paper builds on and integrates these disparate views to reconceptualize adaptive governance as a process of co-production. I outline an alternative conceptual framing, ‘co-productive governance’, that articulates the context, knowledge, process, and vision of governance. I explore these ideas through two cases of connectivity conservation, which draws on conservation science to promote collaborative cross-scale governance. This analysis highlights the ways in which the different contexts of these cases produced very different framings and responses to the same propositions of science and governance. Drawing on theoretical and empirical material, co-productive governance moves beyond long standing debates that institutions can be rationally crafted or must emerge from context resituate adaptive governance in a more critical and contextualized space. This reframing focuses on the process of governance through an explicit consideration of how normative considerations shape the interactions between knowledge and power, science and governance.     

陕北黄土丘陵沟壑区农户气候变化的适应行为及影响因素分析

从农户个体微观视角,研究农业的活动主体--农户的气候变化适应行为。选择陕北黄土丘陵沟壑区,采用问卷调查和半结构式访谈相结合的方法研究农户气候变化感知与适应行为,运用二元逻辑回归模型分析影响该地区农户适应行为的因素。结果表明：农户对气候变化趋势感知比较一致,认为近5 年夏季和冬季气温升高,降水减少,但与实际观测存在一定偏差。农户应对气候变化采取适应行为的比重并不高,只有57.8% 的农户表示采取了相应的措施来应对气候变化。农户适应行为受气候变化感知的影响,此外,家庭社会经济属性对农户采取适应行为的概率影响显著,而性别、年龄、文化程度等人口属性因素与农户采取适应行为的概率关系不大。     

Social-ecological and regional adaptation of agrobiodiversity management across a global set of research regions

To examine management options for biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, eight research regions were classified into social-ecological domains, using a dataset of indicators of livelihood resources, i.e., capital assets. Potential interventions for biodiversity-based agriculture were then compared among landscapes and domains. The approach combined literature review with expert judgment by researchers working in each landscape. Each landscape was described for land use, rural livelihoods and attitudes of social actors toward biodiversity and intensification of agriculture. Principal components analysis of 40 indicators of natural, human, social, financial and physical capital for the eight landscapes showed a loss of biodiversity associated with high-input agricultural intensification. High levels of natural capital (e.g. indicators of wildland biodiversity conservation and agrobiodiversity for human needs) were positively associated with indicators of human capital, including knowledge of the flora and fauna and knowledge sharing among farmers. Three social-ecological domains were identified across the eight landscapes (Tropical Agriculture-Forest Matrix, Tropical Degrading Agroecosystem, and Temperate High-Input Commodity Agriculture) using hierarchical clustering of the indicator values. Each domain shared a set of interventions for biodiversity-based agriculture and ecological intensification that could also increase food security in the impoverished landscapes. Implementation of interventions differed greatly among the landscapes, e.g. financial capital for new farming practices in the Intensive Agriculture domain vs. developing market value chains in the other domains. This exploratory study suggests that indicators of knowledge systems should receive greater emphasis in the monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and that inventories of assets at the landscape level can inform adaptive management of agrobiodiversity-based interventions.     

The effect of rate of change, variability, and extreme events on the pace of adaptation to a changing climate

When is it time to adopt different technologies, management strategies, and resource use practices as underlying climate change occurs? We apply risk and decision analysis to test hypotheses about the timing and pace of adaption in response to different profiles of climate change and extremes expressed as yield and income variation for a simulated dryland wheat farm in the United States Great Plains. Climate scenarios include gradual change with typical or increased noise (standard deviation), rapid and large change, and gradual change with extreme events stepped through the simulation. We test decision strategies that might logically be utilized by farmers facing a climate trend that worsens crop enterprise outcomes. Adaptation quickens with the rate of change, especially for decision strategies based on performance thresholds, but is delayed by larger climate variability, especially for decision strategies based on recognizing growing differential between adaptive and non-adaptive performance. Extreme events evoke adaptation sooner than gradual change alone, and in some scenarios extremes evoke premature, inefficient, adaptation.     

农户生计对气候变化的敏感性研究综述

开展农户生计对气候变化的敏感性研究有利于深入认识气候变化与生计的关系,对增强农户的气候变化适应能力和降低生计脆弱性具有重要意义。在梳理不同领域敏感性概念的基础上,阐述了农户生计对气候变化敏感性的科学内涵和研究框架,重点分析了敏感性表征和综合评价指标体系。农户生计对气候变化的敏感性是指气候变化和极端事件对农户生计的影响程度,敏感性表征主要表现在气候变化对自然资源、人类健康、牲畜、资产和收入等方面的影响,不同地区和人群敏感性表征具有差异性。农户生计对气候变化的敏感性随着发展程度提高而下降,生计多样化、基础设施建设等有助于降低气候变化的影响。生计敏感性多为脆弱性研究的一部分,常以可持续生计分析为框架,运用指标评估法进行综合评价。未来研究需要完善敏感性理论框架和研究方法,加强适应的有效性评估,以及开展跨区域或跨时段的生计敏感性对比研究,重点关注生态脆弱和贫困地区。     

Uneven interventions and the scalar politics of governing livelihood adaptation in rural Nepal

Accounts that address the governance of adaptation are increasingly exploring the ways in which the institutional context can both enable and constrain effective and equal adaptation. This paper contributes to such a growing field by providing empirical evidence derived from participatory field research in the Nepali districts of Chitwan and Nawalparasi in 2010. The results support previous arguments that emphasise the need to address the multi-scalar context of adaptation as a governance issue associated with individual and collective deliberative action (or inaction). Institution analysis identifies the ways in which networks of powerful and well-connected political actors are able to control adaptation projects, flows of knowledge and information, and the ways in which institutions and organisations intervene in response to livelihood needs. This control is under-pinned by an unequal scalar politics that constructs and reproduces particular local adaptation needs at multiple governance scales at once. Many existing tools and frameworks for assessing the institutional elements of adaptation are unable to grapple with these factors systematically. The paper concludes with a call for further attention to forms of scalar politics in the governance of adaptation so that we might be able to more effectively theorise up from local complexity without glossing over inherent power relations, social inequalities, and institutional constraints.     

Farmer adaptation,change and ‘crisis’ in the Sahel

Perceptions of a continuing crisis in managing Sahelian resources are rooted in five dimensions of the Sahel Drought of 1972–1974 as it was understood at the time: crises in rainfall (drought), food supply, livestock management, environmental degradation, and household coping capabilities. A closer examination of household livelihood and farming systems shows that adaptive strategies have been evolved in response to each of these imperatives. Illustrations are provided from recent research in north–east Nigeria. A systematic understanding of indigenous adaptive capabilities can provide a basis for policies enabling a reduction of dependency on aid assistance in the Sahel.