Indonesian Farmers' Perception of Climate Change

Abstract

The impact of climate change in many parts of the world, such as frequent droughts, rising temperatures, and unpredictable rainfall, have required people to fi nd suitable ways to adapt to these potential problems (Below et al., 2010). In agriculture, reductions in yield and increases in weeds and pests have become common climate change problems (Nelson et al., 2009; Ingram, 2014), all of which have contributed to food and economic insecurity (Hwan et al., 2013). Hasegawa et al. (2014) found that climate change impacts food security, even population and economic development still becoming the fi rst place in affecting hunger in developing countries. As Indonesia is a developing agricultural country, the rise in food insecurity due to climate change has become of serious concern (Amien et al., 1992; Measey, 2010). Research in Indonesia has found that serious consideration is now needed to minimize the impact of climate change (Dewi et al., 2014; Mayasari and Suroso, 2014). However, to date, most research has only focused on the environmental effects such as CO2 emissions (Gernowo et al., 2012; Hasegawa and Matsuoka, 2015), the impact on Arabica coffee production (Widayat et al., 2015), and the effects on rice yields (Amien et al., 1996). Farmers in developing countries often get impacted by climate changes through the effects of climate change on agricultural production and rising prices of staple foods (Ahmed et al., 2009). In this study, we investigate farmers’ perceptions to climate change in Karanganyar Regency Indonesia over the past four decades to analyze whether there have been any changes in crop patterns, pests, water availability, harvest failures, and other things. Climate change is believed to be impacting the pests’ condition, especially due to temperature change (Sharma et al., 2014). The fi nal aim of this research is to propose suitable methods to address the expected impact of climate change. A better understanding of the farmers’ perceptions could inform specifi c policies that promote agricultural adaptation (Jianjun et al., 2015). The Indonesian government has also paid attention to the impact of climate change on agricultural production. In the Laws of Republic Indonesia No 19, 2013, it was stated that the government, through the Agriculture Ministry and local government representatives, had to protect farmers from the impact of climate change. ▶論 文◀