Farm-type differences in climate change adaptation intentions

Agriculture is one of the most sensitive sectors towards climate change. Therefore, farmers are forced to adapt their production to climatic changes. To understand farmers' adaptation behavior, it is important to acknowledge heterogeneity among farmers that affects their management decisions and adjustments to production practices. We conducted a latent class analysis of farmers in southern Germany to identify distinct farmer classes with respect to climate change adaptation intentions. The four identified farmer groups showed varying levels of interest in climate change adaptation. Older farmers managing small farms have low awareness of climate change and low adaptation intentions. Livestock farms intend to intensify production, while cash crop farms tend towards extensification. The majority of farms demonstrate selective adaptation, adopting only practices that are easy to implement. Since these are not always the most promising practices, targeted incentive models should attempt to close this gap in the future.