Trends of farmers in Jordan: Madaba Province towards applying climate change adaptation practices to protect their agricultural crops.

Abstract

Jordan is a highly vulnerable country to the negative impacts of climate change. It's suffering from unprecedented waves of drought and high temperatures, which threaten mostly rainfed agriculture. Farmers in Madaba Province depend on rainfed agriculture and are, unfortunately extremely, distressed from climate change impacts on their crops. Limited studies have been conducted about climate change impacts on agricultural crops and methods for adaptation from the point of view of Madaba farmers. The aims of this study were to find out the extent of knowledge that Madaba farmers possess about the impacts of climate change on agriculture and what adaptation practices they use, in addition to the challenges they face in this aspect and the solutions that might be helpful to enrich their knowledge to encounter climate change impacts. In this study, 353 farmers from Madaba responded to a questionnaire to determine their trends towards climate change and the adaptation practices they apply to encounter such a problem. The results showed that farmers' knowledge about climate change and the agricultural practices for adaptation was moderate (M= 2.32, M= 2.15, respectively) and came primarily from other farmers' experiences. The results also showed that farmers applied adaptation practices at a moderate level (M= 2.64), while surface tillage and crop rotation were the most frequently used methods to mitigate climate change. Furthermore, data indicated that the lack of government support for farmers was the most significant challenge to applying the adaptation measures. The study also demonstrated that increasing government support for farmers and providing them with training courses were among the most acceptable solutions for addressing the risks of climate change. Finally, the study showed that age and education level played a significant role in the extent to which farmers adopted adaptation methods to mitigate climate change consequences. It is hoped that this study will guide the government and decision-makers to become aware of the most important challenges facing Madaba farmers due to climate change and to exert greater effort in improving and following up on the plans they have prepared to confront these threats to agriculture in a more effective and practical way.