IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jagris/v10y2020i7p253-d379096.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Farmers’ Beliefs and Concerns about Climate Change: An Assessment from Southern Saudi Arabia

Author

Listed:
  • Bader Alhafi Alotaibi

    (Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia)

  • Hazem S. Kassem

    (Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
    Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt)

  • Roshan K. Nayak

    (California 4-H Foundation, University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources, Davis, CA 95616, USA)

  • Muhammad Muddassir

    (Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia)

Abstract

Climate change constitutes a major threat to agricultural production, food security, and natural resource management. Saudi Arabia is particularly susceptible to increasing temperatures and extreme climatic events, such as arid weather and drought. The purpose of this study is to assess farmers’ beliefs and concerns as regards climate change. Extensive interviews were conducted with 164 farmers in the Jazan region. Results revealed that 89.6% of the farmers believed that climate change is due to human activities and 93.3% believed that it is because of natural change. Seventy-five percent of the farmers were concerned about insects and 73% about the prevalence of weeds on their farms. Findings of cluster analysis revealed that farmers who are more likely to believe in climate change are more in agreement with the role of extension services in capacity building. Farmers’ beliefs about climate change were significantly influenced by membership of agricultural cooperatives, access to loans, use of extension services, age, farm size, and level of soil fertility. Access to loans was the only significant factor to explain the differences in farmers’ concerns. These results suggest the need for capacity-building activities targeted at improving farmers’ adaptability to manage climate variability.

Suggested Citation

  • Bader Alhafi Alotaibi & Hazem S. Kassem & Roshan K. Nayak & Muhammad Muddassir, 2020. "Farmers’ Beliefs and Concerns about Climate Change: An Assessment from Southern Saudi Arabia," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-16, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:10:y:2020:i:7:p:253-:d:379096
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/10/7/253/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/10/7/253/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J. Arbuckle & Lois Morton & Jon Hobbs, 2013. "Farmer beliefs and concerns about climate change and attitudes toward adaptation and mitigation: Evidence from Iowa," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 118(3), pages 551-563, June.
    2. Hazem S. Kassem & Abdel Raouf Suleiman Bello & Bader M. Alotaibi & Fahd O. Aldosri & Gary S. Straquadine, 2019. "Climate Change Adaptation in the Delta Nile Region of Egypt: Implications for Agricultural Extension," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-22, January.
    3. Abdou Matsalabi Ado & Jin Leshan & Patrice Savadogo & Li Bo & Ashfaq Ahmad Shah, 2019. "Farmers’ awareness and perception of climate change impacts: case study of Aguie district in Niger," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 21(6), pages 2963-2977, December.
    4. Hanqin Tian & Chaoqun Lu & Philippe Ciais & Anna M. Michalak & Josep G. Canadell & Eri Saikawa & Deborah N. Huntzinger & Kevin R. Gurney & Stephen Sitch & Bowen Zhang & Jia Yang & Philippe Bousquet & , 2016. "The terrestrial biosphere as a net source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere," Nature, Nature, vol. 531(7593), pages 225-228, March.
    5. Bruna Irene Grimberg & Selena Ahmed & Colter Ellis & Zachariah Miller & Fabian Menalled, 2018. "Climate Change Perceptions and Observations of Agricultural Stakeholders in the Northern Great Plains," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-17, May.
    6. Anish Shrestha & Samata Baral, 2018. "Socioeconomic Factors Affecting Awareness And Adaption Of Climate Change: A Case Study Of Banke District Nepal," Earth Sciences Malaysia (ESMY), Zibeline International Publishing, vol. 2(2), pages 20-24, January.
    7. B. Fosu-Mensah & P. Vlek & D. MacCarthy, 2012. "Farmers’ perception and adaptation to climate change: a case study of Sekyedumase district in Ghana," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 495-505, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bader Alhafi Alotaibi & Azhar Abbas & Raza Ullah & Roshan K. Nayak & Muhammad I. Azeem & Hazem S. Kassem, 2021. "Climate Change Concerns of Saudi Arabian Farmers: The Drivers and Their Role in Perceived Capacity Building Needs for Adaptation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-22, November.
    2. Bader Alhafi Alotaibi & Hazem S. Kassem, 2021. "Adoption of Sustainable Water Management Practices among Farmers in Saudi Arabia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-17, October.
    3. Fadjry Djufry & Suci Wulandari & Renato Villano, 2022. "Climate Smart Agriculture Implementation on Coffee Smallholders in Indonesia and Strategy to Accelerate," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-21, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gökçe Koç & Ayşe Uzmay, 2022. "Determinants of dairy farmers’ likelihood of climate change adaptation in the Thrace Region of Turkey," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(8), pages 9907-9928, August.
    2. Nguyen The Manh & Mokbul Morshed Ahmad, 2021. "Indigenous farmers' perception of climate change and the use of local knowledge to adapt to climate variability: A case study of Vietnam," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(7), pages 1189-1212, October.
    3. Tuyen Tiet & Nguyen To-The & Tuan Nguyen-Anh, 2022. "Farmers’ behaviors and attitudes toward climate change adaptation: evidence from Vietnamese smallholder farmers," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(12), pages 14235-14260, December.
    4. Lan Mu & Lan Fang & Yuhong Liu & Chencheng Wang, 2020. "Identifying Barriers and Enablers for Climate Change Adaptation of Farmers in Semi-Arid North-Western China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-21, September.
    5. Blazquez-Soriano, Amparo & Ramos-Sandoval, Rosmery, 2022. "Information transfer as a tool to improve the resilience of farmers against the effects of climate change: The case of the Peruvian National Agrarian Innovation System," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    6. Huaiyuan Zhai & Mengjie Li & Shengyue Hao & Mingli Chen & Lingchen Kong, 2021. "How Does Metro Maintenance Staff’s Risk Perception Influence Safety Citizenship Behavior—The Mediating Role of Safety Attitude," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-20, May.
    7. Michael Carolan, 2020. "Filtering perceptions of climate change and biotechnology: values and views among Colorado farmers and ranchers," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 121-139, March.
    8. Portia Adade Williams & Olivier Crespo & Mumuni Abu, 2020. "Assessing vulnerability of horticultural smallholders’ to climate variability in Ghana: applying the livelihood vulnerability approach," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 2321-2342, March.
    9. Xin Xuan & Bing Liu & Fan Zhang, 2021. "Climate Change and Adaptive Management: Case Study in Agriculture, Forestry and Pastoral Areas," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-17, August.
    10. Dao Duy Minh & Nguyen Dang Hao & Philippe Lebailly, 2020. "Adapting to Climate Extreme Events Based on Livelihood Strategies: Evidence from Rural Areas in Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-17, December.
    11. Cook, Aaron M. & Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob E. & Sesmero, Juan P., 2013. "How do African households adapt to climate change? Evidence from Malawi," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150507, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Francis Yao Anyan, 2018. "Farmers Perceptions and Attitudes Towards the Use of Agricultural Indigenous Knowledge in Farming," Journal of Agriculture and Crops, Academic Research Publishing Group, vol. 4(6), pages 63-67, 06-2018.
    13. Nyadzi, Emmanuel, 2016. "Climate Variability Since 1970 and Farmers’ Observations in Northern Ghana," Sustainable Agriculture Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 5(2).
    14. Hui Wang & Hong Li & Zhihao Liu & Jianhua Lv & Xinzhang Song & Quan Li & Hong Jiang & Changhui Peng, 2021. "Observed Methane Uptake and Emissions at the Ecosystem Scale and Environmental Controls in a Subtropical Forest," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-16, September.
    15. Azad Haider & Muhammad Iftikhar ul Husnain & Wimal Rankaduwa & Farzana Shaheen, 2021. "Nexus between Nitrous Oxide Emissions and Agricultural Land Use in Agrarian Economy: An ARDL Bounds Testing Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-19, March.
    16. Sifat E. Rabbi & Reza Shant & Sourav Karmakar & Azhar Habib & Jürgen P. Kropp, 2021. "Regional mapping of climate variability index and identifying socio-economic factors influencing farmer’s perception in Bangladesh," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(7), pages 11050-11066, July.
    17. Ji, Yongjie & Rabotyagov, sergey & Valcu-Lisman, Adriana, 2015. "Estimating Adoption of Cover Crops Using Preferences Revealed by a Dynamic Crop Choice Model," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205799, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Theodoros Skevas & Ray Massey & Jasper Grashuis, 2022. "Farmer adoption and intensity of use of extreme weather adaptation and mitigation strategies: evidence from a sample of Missouri farmers," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 1-23, September.
    19. Magnus Bergquist & Andreas Nilsson & Niklas Harring & Sverker C. Jagers, 2022. "Meta-analyses of fifteen determinants of public opinion about climate change taxes and laws," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(3), pages 235-240, March.
    20. Alistair Munro, 2020. "Using experimental manipulation of questionnaire design and a Kenyan panel to test for the reliability of reported perceptions of climate change and adaptation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 1081-1105, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:10:y:2020:i:7:p:253-:d:379096. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.