Understanding climate change adaptive behaviour of farmers: an integrated conceptual framework

Abstract

Climate change is a pressing concern for the agricultural sector of both developed and developing countries due to the heavy reliance of this primary sector on climate conditions. However, little research effort has gone into understanding underlying cognitive factors that implicitly and explicitly guide the climate change adaptation process of farmers and the combined influence of socioeconomic and psychological factors on their adaptive behaviour. Since the importance of psychological factors and the reinforcement of psychology and economics to each other in explaining human behaviour have been well recognised, this paper employs behavioural economic viewpoints, protection motivation theory, and the theory of planned behaviour as the foundation. An integrated conceptual framework has been developed that takes into account psychological as well as socio-economic factors and examines the interaction among those variables in explaining farmers’ decision-making process regarding climate change adaptation. The framework aims to provide a better understanding of farmers’ adaptive behaviour in response to climate change.