Understanding the influence of Iranian farmers’ climate change beliefs on their adaptation strategies and mitigation intentions

Agriculture is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change, therefore it is necessary to understand farmer perceptions of – and adaptation to – climate change. As part of a unique farm adaptation study in Iran, we used structural equation modelling to analyze 400 on-farm survey responses from Khuzestan Province farmers, to understand how their different types of climate change beliefs influenced their mitigation and adaptation behaviour. The structural equation modelling results show that: (1) social trust and responsibility directly influenced adaptation and mitigation; (2) age, education, and family size were not significantly associated with the adaptation and mitigation indexes; and (3) believing in overall climate change was not the actual driver of farmer adaptation (or mitigation) behaviour, and that overall beliefs were mediated through individual farm and local experience. Beliefs in farm and local climate change impacts had the largest, positive, and significant influence on farm adaptation. Once mediated, overall farmer climate change beliefs played a negative role influencing total farm adaptation behaviour, highlighting the need for government and agencies to target communication around the risk impacts of climate change, particularly at the local and regional levels.