Saturday, February 19, 2011

Understanding on-farm climate change decisions

Farm Weekly (Australia): A new report released today by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation helps to explain what drives farmers’ decision making in relation to climate change. “This new report looks at how different kinds of farmers react to the prospect of climate change adaptation, and the factors that impact on their decision making,” Mr Craig Burns, RIRDC Managing Director said.

“The study found that health and social factors were key attributes of farmers who were seeking to move towards more sustainable farming practices. It also found many farmers are driven by a sense of moral responsibility when it comes to their attitudes to sustainability.” …Some of the report’s findings include:
  • ‘Cash poor long term adaptors’ actively seek to adapt their farming practices to manage climate change risk and to be sustainable in the long term;
  • ‘Comfortable non-adaptors’ feel little pressure to seriously consider climate change or the adaptive practices that adverse climate change will demand;
  • ‘Transitioners ’ had poor overall adaptive capacity, and were less certain about climate change and what they should do about it.
Waist-high cotton growing on a Queensland farm, around 1924

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