Utilizing Farmers’ Views and Attitudes to Hinder Climate Change Threats: Insights from Greece

The anthropogenic origin of climate change is well-documented in the scientific literature, with agriculture recognized as both a significant contributor and a sector highly vulnerable to its impacts. This dynamic creates a vicious circle, where farming activities exacerbate climate change, while farmers simultaneously bear its adverse consequences. As a result, they play a pivotal role in both mitigation and adaptation efforts. Using this as a starting point, the overarching aim of the present study is to investigate farmers’ climate change views and to indicate how farmers envisage their role, responsibilities, and possibilities to mitigate and adapt to climate change. To this end, a primary questionnaire survey was conducted based on a sample of 150 farmers in the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace in Greece. Principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted in order to identify the key views and attitudes of farmers towards their role and responsibilities about the impact of climate change. Additionally, clustering techniques were employed to classify farmers with similar attitudes, providing a typology regarding their behavior toward climate adaptation and mitigation issues. Lastly, a series of non-parametric statistical tests were performed to profile the identified groups of farmers and additionally to define differences among farmers’ features, agricultural holdings’ features, and cluster solution groups. The results of this process provide a comprehensive understanding of Greek farmers’ views and attitudes towards climate change. Acknowledging farmers’ views and attitudes towards climate change at the national level is crucial for the national and regional authorities in their effort to plan successful future climate policies for the agricultural sector and to ensure success in farm-scale implementation.