Iranian Water Researches Journal

Iranian Water Researches Journal

Adaptation strategies of farmers to climate change and its impact on date palm production in southeastern Iran

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Department of physical Geography, Faculty of Geography and Environmental Planning, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran.
10.22034/iwrj.2024.14567.2564
Abstract
A lack of adaptive capacities for climate change prevents poor farmers from diversifying agricultural production. Climate change adaptation strategies can reduce the production risk relating to unforeseen climatic shocks and increase farmers’ food, income, and livelihood security. This paper investigates date palm farmers’ adaptive capacities to adapt climate change strategies to reduce the date production risk. The study collected 300 farm-level micro-data of date palm farmers with the direct cooperation. The survey was conducted during periods between July and September of 2022. Date palm farmers’ adaptive capacities were estimated quantitatively by categorizing the farmers as high, moderate, and low-level adapters to climate change adaptation strategies. In this study, a Cobb–Douglas production function was used to measure the effects of farmers’ adaptive capacities on date production. The obtained results show that farmers are moderately adaptive in terms of adaptation strategies on climate change and the degree of adaptation capacities. Agronomic practices such as the quantity of fertilizer used, the amount of labor, the farm’s size, and extension contacts have a substantial impact on date production. This study recommends that a farmer more significantly adjusts to adaptation strategies on climate change to reduce date production. These strategies will help farmers to reduce the risk and produce higher quality date fruit. Consequently, date palm farmers should facilitate better extension services and change the present agronomic practice to attain a higher adaptation status. It can be very clearly seen that low adaptability results in lower date yields
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  • Receive Date 15 October 2023
  • Revise Date 01 January 2024
  • Accept Date 09 January 2024