Factors Affecting Farmers’ Adaptation to Climate Change: A case of wheat farmers in Gachsaran, Iran

Climate change is one of the most important challenges that affect different parts of human life on the earth. Due to its very close relationship with natural resources and climatic conditions, the agricultural sector is the most affected by this change. Thus, this study aimed to identify the factors affecting the capacity of wheat farmers to adapt their careers to climate change in Gachsaran County, Iran. The research was an applied study in which field data were used in a descriptive-correlational and causal-correlation design to analyse the relationships of the variables. The research population was composed of 1845 wheat farmers working in Gachsaran. Using Cochran’s formula, 318 farmers were selected for the study through simple randomization. A questionnaire, which included personal and professional features, the factors affecting the farmers’ adaptation capacity, and the farmers’ perceptions of climate change, was developed by the researcher. An expert panel was used to address the validity of the developed questionnaire. Using Cronbach’s alpha, the reliability of the questionnaire was measured to be at the acceptable level of 0.72. The results of the multivariate regression showed that social capital, quality of life, the number of people aging over 60 in the family, the number of family members contributing to agriculture, income from agriculture, access to educational services, age, academic degree, total agricultural land, level of experience, and wheat yield per hectare accounted for the bulk of variance in the dependent variables (39.77%).