How Californian farmers perceive and react to climate change? A triple-loop approach to strengthening climate risk assessment from social learning

Farmers confront a range of climate change-induced stressors, such as increasing temperatures, variations in rainfall, and the heightened frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, underscoring the varying risks in challenging decision-making processes. Increasing the success in adapting to climate extremes largely depends on a thorough understanding of farmers’ perspectives and abilities to face both immediate and prolonged climate disturbances. Strategies can differ based on intention (independent or self-directed), duration (short- or long-term), type and level of engagement (individual or community, local or global), and nature (technical, financial, institutional), whether they are applied before or after severe weather events and concurrent extremes. Furthermore, internal drivers (e.g., farmers’ characteristics, experiences, attitudes) and external predictors (e.g., innovation and technology, costs, incentives, support) tend to influence farmer risk perception, preparation intention, and adaptive capacity. Hence, it is imperative to conduct a conscientious assessment of how farmers face climate change to gain a deeper understanding of their vulnerability or resilience, and effectively move to increasing their adaptive capacity.

Following a bottom-up approach, this contribution delves into farmers’ behaviour regarding climate change by considering climate change awareness, perception, and adaptation. We conducted 921 surveys randomly among farmers in California, known as the California’s agricultural hub, concentrating about five million hectares growing more than 250 crops and producing ¼ of the nation’s food production. As one of the most climatically vulnerable regions globally, it is essential to examine how farmers experience, perceive, and respond to more frequent and intense extremes events (e.g., heatwave, drought, wildfire, erratic rainfall) together with evaluating the nature and nuance of (anthropogenic) climate change scepticism. Three main questions are addressed through descriptive and inferential statistics: 1) Do farmers recognize climate change as a major issue and identify who is responsible for? 2) What are the most perceived impacts and which effects are more evident among the farming community? and 3) How significantly do farmers promote adaptation strategies and what barriers reduce their resilience?

Preliminary results highlighted that 1) Farmers believe their farm is exposed to extreme events (75%), particularly challenging for irrigated crops (80%), 2) Warmer temperatures, heatwaves and droughts together with decreased rainfall and snowpack are reported by at least half of farmers, increasing changes in plant growth (59%), and 3) 2 out of 3 farmers introduce soil conservation techniques and switching to more efficient irrigation methods. However, some barriers are hindering adaptation, such as the high cost of investment (72%), the increasing environmental regulatory requirements (68%) or the lack of funding to support climate adaptation (e.g., water trading programs), which was pinpointed by half of the respondents. Additionally, we have explored the potential heterogeneity among farmers’ preferences and the influence and predictability between being aware and perceive climate change impacts, and perceive impacts and apply for adaptation measures. A better comprehension of the farmers’ behavior in terms of risk assessment and adaptive capacity can facilitate the transferability of bottom-up findings into behavior modelling as well as the customization of more targeted and flexible adaptation instruments and strategies.