Factors influencing the use of adaptation strategies to climate change in paddy lands of Kamfiruz, Iran

Climate variability in recent decades has made it imperative to use adaptation strategies to offset the adverse impacts of climate change. The present study mainly aimed to determine the variables influencing farmers’ decisions on adaptation and to investigate the variables dictating the extent to which each adaptation strategy is used. So, data on production inputs, demographic characteristics, socio-economic attributes, and institutional-cultural factors were collected from 360 rice farmers in the basins of Kamfiruz district, Iran and were analyzed by descriptive statistics, multinomial logit, and the Tobit Heckman two-stage models. The results indicated that the most common adaptation strategies included modifying crop cultivars and changing the area of land under cultivation. Besides, the estimation of the multinomial logit model implied that 13 variables could account for 51.42 % of the variance in the possibility of farmers’ adaptation. Moreover, cultivated land area, seed, fertilizer, pesticide, water, age, educational level, experience, income, land size, and training were the factors found to significantly affect farmers’ decision to apply adaptation practices. Of these explanatory variables, cultivated land area, water, and training were the key factors influencing adaptation strategies while labor and land tenure were not. Finally, a distinction was presented by the two-stage Tobit method between the variables influencing the selection of an adaptation strategy and the variables affecting the extent of the use of adaptation strategies. The policy recommendations for adaptation activities, training courses, land management, and the control of water input are suggested to enhance farmers’ adaptability.