Farmers perception and adaptation to climate change: a willingness to pay analysis

Abstract

Climate change and weather patterns are already being experienced as is evident in severe negative impacts on food production, food security and natural resources all over the globe. Farmer adaption to climate change is crucial to combating food insecurity and related problems. This paper, therefore, assesses farmers’ perception and adaptation to climate change to enhance policy towards tackling the challenges climate change posses to the farmers in Ghana. With regards to farmers’ perception on climate change, majority of the farmers perceived increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall pattern. Farmers’ level of adaptation was found to be relatively high with majority of the farmers using changing planting dates, different crop varieties and soil conservation methods as the major adaptation measures. Logistic regression estimation finds age, years of farming experience, farm land owner, farm size and other income generating activity as significant predictors of the probability to pay for climate change policy