Observations, Perceptions, and Responses to Climate Change and Variability Among Small Farmers in Sherwood Content, Trelawny, Jamaica

Abstract

By examining the human dimension of climate change, researchers seek to understand how different groups of people are influenced by the economic, cultural, and geopolitical variations of the process of climate change. Across the Caribbean, there is a thrust among academicians and planners to assess the impacts on food production systems in order to stave off the long-term, more debilitating impacts on agriculture. A better understanding of how farmers’ perceive climate change, ongoing coping and adaptation measures, and the factors influencing the decision to adapt farming practices is needed to craft policies and programmes aimed at promoting successful adaptation of the agricultural sector to climate change and variability (Bryan et al. 2009). Farmers’ perceptions on climate change and variability are important in adaptation as they determine decisions in agricultural planning and management by the farmers (Bryant et al. 2008; Moyo et al. 2012). Peters (1997) opined that perception is important because a misconception of a risk has undesirable consequences.