DOES SOCIAL CAPITAL AFFECT FARMERS' CHOICE OF CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION STRATEGIES?

Abstract

Small-scale farmers in developing countries are vulnerable and negatively impacted by climate change. To enhance resilience and decrease vulnerability, studies suggest three actions: adopting new varieties, changing cropping patterns, and improving irrigation. However, the effect of social capital on farmers' adaptation strategies has been overlooked. This study incorporated social capital and other factors identifies by previous studies, into the multiple choices adaptation decision model estimation using the multivariate probit model. Personal interviews using structured questionnaire were conducted from October to December 2019 through multistage random sampling process to identify 150 chili farming households in Malang Regency, East Java, Indonesia. The findings show that climate information affects the farmer's choice to change the cropping pattern; adopting new varieties was positively influenced by subsidies and climate information; while access to cooperatives and credit affected irrigation adaptation. Therefore, enhancing farmers' social capital could help dealing with the adverse impacts of climate change.

Keywords

• climate change
• adaptation strategies
• chili farmers
• social capital
• multivariate probit