Effects of Farmers Knowledge and Climate Change on Yields of Crop in the Saline Prone Area of Bangladesh

Abstract

Southern part of Bangladesh is one of the most affected areas confronting the effects of climate change especially in agricultural sector. The study was planned to examine effect of climate change on agriculture in the saline prone areas, and estimate the level of contribution of the selected characteristics of the farmers to the effect of climate change on agriculture. For this reason, data were collected from 88 farmers under study group and 30 farmers under control group from 16 March, 2017 to 15 April, 2017. Descriptive statistics, multiple regression, t-test were used for data analysis. There was a negative effect of climate change on agriculture comparing the study and control group changed score from 2015 to 2017. In case of study group, 61.4 percent of the farmers had medium effect, 17.0 percent had low effect and 21.6 percent of the farmers had high effect of climate change on agriculture. It was also found that out of eleven factors, seven namely age, level of education, annual family income, farming experience, training exposure, agricultural knowledge and knowledge on climate change had significant contribution to the effect of climate change on agriculture in the saline prone areas. It is concluded that climate change may play a significant role in decreasing the yield of cereal crops, yield of vegetables, yield of pulses and increasing number of adopted new varieties of agricultural crops by the farmers. It is recommended that the Bangladesh government and NGOs should take initiative for reducing effect of climate change on agriculture for a sustainable agricultural development.