Abstract
The study aimed at determining farmers' perception of climate change influence on rice production and to explore the relationships of their selected characteristics with their perception of climate change influence. Data were collected during September to December 2016 through Interview schedule, Focus Group Discussion, Scored Causal Diagrams and Case study from farmers of Kalapara and Galachipa under Patuakhali district. Both primary and secondary sources of data were used in the study. The selected fourteen characteristics of the farmers were considered as the independent variables while their perception of climate change influence on rice production constituted the dependent variable. Out of 912, the data were collected from a sample of 275 randomly selected farmers of the study. The perception scores of the farmers ranged from 35 to 135 against the possible range of 30 to 150, with an average of 99.21. The highest proportion (75.3 percent) of the respondents had slightly favorable perception, 19.3 percent had slightly unfavorable perception, 4.7 percent had strongly favorable perception and only 0.7 percent had strongly unfavorable perception. The average perception score regarding rice plant growth, infestation of pests, availability of water and soil fertility aspects were 20, 19, 35 and 23 respectively, against the possible scores of 6 to 30 for each aspect of rice plant growth and also for infestation of pests, 11 to 55 for availability of water and 7 to 35 for soil fertility. Among the characteristics of the farmers education, family size, farming experience, annual income, social participation, extension media exposure, training received, agricultural loan, knowledge on climate change, attitude towards farming under vulnerable ecosystem, tendency of alternative livelihood and climate change adaptation were significantly correlated with their perception of climate change influence on rice production. Among these, only five predictors, namely education, farming experience, knowledge on climate change, attitude towards farming under vulnerable ecosystem and climate change adaptation had significant contribution to perception status. Forty four percent of the total variation in the perception of climate change influence on rice production was explained by these five predictors. The farmers who were more educated, longer farming experience, more knowledge on climate change, favorable attitude under vulnerable ecosystem and accepted more climate change adaptation practices were found to have favorable perception of climate change influence on rice production. Considering the relative contribution or perception of climate change influence, based on their direct effects, the five variables could be arranged as climate change adaptation > knowledge on climate change> attitude under vulnerable ecosystem> education > farming experience. Lack of appropriate climate change policy, lack of awareness on climate change impact on rice production, lack of fund to cope with climate change impact, lack of training opportunity, less learning opportunity on research based information and lack of demonstration were among the major constraints confronted by the farmers for participation of climate change adaptation practices.