The agricultural sector is particularly exposed to changes in climate. As such, there is a need to implement adaptation practices that take into account the perceptions of famers from the ‘bottom-up’. In March 2014, a survey of hop growers in the Czech Republic was conducted by BASE partner CzechGlobe. It revealed that a majority of hop growers perceive that global climate change is occurring, and have had experience with extreme weather events, while believing that governments, agricultural insurers and farmers themselves have an important role to play in selecting and implementing adaptation practices.
By: Eliška K. Lorencová, Blanka Loučková, David Vačkář, CzechGlobe
The majority of respondents agreed (42% agree, 14% strongly agree) with the statement “Global climate change is occurring.” On the other hand, 10% of the respondents strongly disagree and 12% disagree with this statement.
The following question asked whether farmers have observed, during their years working at the farm, more frequent extreme weather events (e.g. drought, windstorms, hail, extreme precipitation, floods)?
Figure 2: Increase in frequency of extreme weather events
The majority of respondents (74%) have observed more frequent extreme weather events. In contrast, a minority, 22% of the respondents claimed that the haven´t observed any increase in frequency of extreme weather events.
When asked about their experience with specific extreme weather events (see Figure 3 below), the majority of respondents had ‘rather more’ to ‘great’ experience with these events. The highest experience (‘rather more’ and ‘great’ experience) farmers had was with drought (74%), severe storms causing damage to trees (69.4%), severe storms causing flooding (75.6%) and hail (60%).
Figure 3: Experience with specific extreme weather events
The last question concerned responsibility for initiating climate change adaptation process, asking: Who should be responsible for initiating steps to protect your farm from the potential negative impacts of climate change (e.g. drought, floods, and storms)?
Figure 4: Responsibility to initiate steps to climate change adaptation
In conclusion, the majority of hop growers (56%) in the Czech Republic agree that global climate change is happening. Moreover, farmers have substantial experience with extreme weather events, such as drought, severe storms, hails, changes in water availability, etc. The majority of respondents perceived responsibility of government, themselves and agricultural insurance in initiating steps to climate change adaptation.
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