Rice Farmers’ Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change and Water Input: Evidence From Micro Level Data

The main purpose of this paper is to identify adaptation strategies and factors governing farmers’ choice and determine their effects on each adaptation strategy in the face of perceived climate change in the Kamfiruz region of Iran. In this sense, we consider common socio-economic and institutional factors, and also the amount of water input for paddy fields. After surveying the impacts of climate change and production losses due to climate change on rice production, we use a binary logit and multivariate probit model to examine different factors affecting adaptation to climate change and how they affect each adaptation practice in paddy fields. According to the results, adjusting farming calendars, changing crop varieties, increasing consumption of groundwater for irrigation, using irrigation control mechanisms, and intercropping are the most important adaptation strategies. Besides, the estimation of the multinomial logit model implies that eight variables account for 51.4% of the possibility of adaptation of rice farmers. Moreover, actual changes in the possibility of adoption of adaptive measures concerning a unit of increase in cultivated water, age, educational, income level, farm size and training are +3.3, -8, +4, +6, +4, and +17%, respectively. However, of these explanatory variables, water and training are the most prominent variables in influencing more adaptation strategies to climatic events. The paper is concluded with suggestions as to some policy interventions to scale up adaptation to climate change in Kamfirouz paddy fields located in Fars province.