COMMON INTEREST GROUP FARMERS’ AWARENESS ON CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENCE STRATEGIES

Abstract

The main purpose of the study were to determine the CIG farmers’ awareness on climate change resilience strategies,to describe the selected characteristics of the CIG farmers and their relationshipsto their awareness on climate change resilience strategies and to determine the problems faced by the farmers due to climate change with their possible solutions. In this study 300 of the CIG farmers were considered as the population. Data were collected from a sample of 106 CIG farmers from 5 no. Biral union under Biral upazila of Dinajpur district during 02 September to 28 October, 2019 through simple random sampling method. Awareness on climate change resilience strategies of the CIG farmers was considered as the focus issue of the study. Awareness on climate change resilience strategies of the CIG farmers was measured by 4-point rating scale. Findings revealed that, the highest proportion (87.7 percent) of the CIG farmers were moderately aware on climate change resilience strategies; while 10.4 percent were highly aware and only 1.9 percent of the respondents were slightly aware on climate change resilience strategies. On the basis of the Awareness Index (AI) score of CIG farmers, the statements ‘agricultural information for adaptation’ ranked 1st (AI value 308) and statement ‘improvement of soil management’ got the lowest score (AI 56) and hence got the lowest (11th) position in the ranked order.Seven out of eleven selected characteristics of the CIG farmers’ viz. age, household head’s education, average family education, annual family income, agricultural training received, extension media contact and knowledge on climate change had significant positive relationship with their awareness on climate change resilience strategies. Rests of the characteristics viz. family size, farm size, farming experience and innovativeness had no significant relationship with their awareness on climate change resilience strategies at five percent level of significance. ‘Outbreak of pests and diseases’ was the top ranked problem faced by the farmers due to climate change, while ‘increased training facilities according to their needs for increasing their knowledge and skill of awareness on climate change’, was the top ranked suggestion given by the farmers to overcome the problems.