Level of Awareness of Haor Farmers in Combating Climate Change Hazards for Boro Rice Production

Abstract

Farmers’ awareness about the hazards derived from climate change on boro rice production has been a central issue to reduce their crop loss in a sustainable way.  In this study, farmers’ awareness was measured on the basis of twelve adverse effects of climate change on boro rice production using a four point rating scale. Necessary data were collected through personal interview using a mixed method research design from 100 randomly selected haor farmers of four villages of Tahirpur and Bishwambarpur upazila under Sunamganj district during 20 March to 10 May, 2018. The findings revealed that an overwhelming majority (75 percent) of the haor farmers had conscious to stable awareness while 25 percent were unconsciously aware of the effects of climate change. On the other hand, results of correlation analysis indicated that some characteristics of haor farmers like age and family size had negative and statistically significant relationship while their education level, farm size, annual family income, communication exposure, agricultural training experience, perception on climate change had a positive and statistically significant relationship with their awareness about the effects of climate change on boro rice production. The highest awareness level was reported against the effect of flash flood in haor areas while the haor farmers had lowest awareness on crop damage due to the excessive cloudy sky. The findings of this result can be utilized to develop a suitable policy for uplifting of socio-economic status of the haor farmers and also guide to develop suitable strategies to secure boro rice production.