Factors driving farmers’ knowledge on climate change in a climatically vulnerable state of India

Abstract

Climate and its inevitable symptoms of change are now becoming a part of people’s life. They have realised the related potential threats and magnitude of skewed pace of develop ment for generations to come as an outcome of climate-induced natural disasters. The prior knowledge and conditioning about the climate change is much pressing need in the third world nations (like India) where it is circumscribed only to the elite-urban mass. The pre sent study has assessed the awareness and knowledge level of farmers on climate change and delineated the factors driving their knowledge in a coastal (Balasore) and non-coastal (Khurda) districts of Odisha, a climatically vulnerable state in India. Most of the farm ers were aware about issues of climate change; however, their knowledge level on various phenomena was found less than average with overall climate knowledge index of 46.60 and 45.33 per cent in Balasore and Khurda districts, respectively. Attributes like educa tion, number of earning family members, income from farm activity, wealth ranking, assets holding, mass media exposure and use of personal localite sources of information together explained 66.60 per cent variations in knowledge level of farmers on climate change in Balasore district. Similarly, in Khurda district, multiple regression analyses (backward method) revealed that age, education and income from non-farm activity determined 69.90 per cent variations in knowledge level of farmers on climate change phenomena.