Nepalese farmers’ climate change perceptions, reality and farming strategies 

ABSTRACT

The study explores the impacts of Nepali farmers’ climate change perceptions on their farming practices over the last three decades (1980–2014). Results from a survey with 496 farmers show that nearly all farmers attributed changes in crop varieties and cropping patterns mainly to technological and market-related factors and not to climate change. A comparison between perceptions and meteorological data shows that while perceptions of changes in maximum temperatures did match observed trends, perceptions of changes in minimum temperature and rainfall did not. The results indicate that the climate change message in the past 30 years has not been definite enough to have a consistent impact on either farmers’ perceptions or their farming practices. This may impede farmers’ adaptive capacity in dealing with increasingly severe future climate change impacts. Because of large variations in the micro-climate of the study locations and the locations of the weather stations from which we obtained the meteorological data, the results need to be treated with caution. However, we suggest that for farmers to effectively adapt to climate change, it may be necessary for responsible state and non-state actors to improve their communication on expected climate change impacts.

KEYWORDS:

• Adaptation
• agro-ecology
• climate change
• cropping pattern
• farmer perceptions

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the keen interest in and valuable inputs to the study by the project advisor, Professor E. Somanathan, of the Economics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi. The authors would also like to thank Professor Jeff Vincent of the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University and Dr. Mani Nepal of SANDEE for valuable suggestions and comments at various stages of the study. The authors thank the SANDEE Secretariat for assistance with logistics and other matters and the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Nepal, for providing the secondary data required for the study. An earlier version of this manuscript was published in SANDEE’s working paper series.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Nanda Kaji Budhathoki is a PhD student at Charles Darwin University in Australia. He completed his master degree in Development and Resources Economics from Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) and also completed 50 credit master and PhD courses in Health Economics from University of Oslo, Norway. He is currently conducting his research on climate change issues and its impact on agriculture and health in Nepal.

Kerstin K. Zander is an Associate Professor at Charles Darwin University where she has conducted research on climate change impacts and adaptation for the last 10 years. She holds a PhD in Environmental Economics from the University of Bonn and is an Adjunct Professor at the German Development Institute (DIE) in Bonn.

ORCID

Kerstin K. Zander http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2237-1801

Correction Statement

article.

Additional information

Funding

We would like to acknowledge the ‘Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship’ for providing funding for this PhD. The study was made possible through a financial grant from the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE) [grant number SANDEE/2014-06].