Global warming and climatic change: A case study on dairy farmers’ awareness and adoption measures in Anuradhapura district of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Climate change is a major issue for agricultural sustainability and changes in dairy farming practices will be necessary both to reduce emissions and to adapt to a changing climate with new social expectations. The objectives of this study were to measure the dairy farmers awareness on global warming and climate change problems, to study the farmers’ adoption measures to reduce the emission of green house gasses (GHG) and to measure willingness of the farmers for ameliorating GHG emission. Data were collected from 117 farmers by using simple random sample technique in seven GN divisions namely Poowarsankulama, Saliyapura, Parasangahawewa, Paniyankadawala, Mankadawala, Bandara Puliyankulama, Thisawewa in Anuradhapura district. From the study 94.6% of the respondents were male and mean age of studied sample 37 years. Eighty six percent of the respondents had attained more than secondary education. Around 60% farmers have less than six dairy cattle. Most of farmers (68%) used extensive systems to rear their cattle as compared to semi intensive (32%). Majority (76%) farmers send their animals to grazing lands which are not owned by them. Milk production ranged between 0.5 – 30 l/day with most respondents producing 3 l/day. Nearly 67% of respondents were aware about climate change and its impacts. However, few farmers (23%) had knowledge about global warming and green house gasses. Farmers were asked to indicate their understanding of the phenomenon. Curiously, 69% of respondents reported that they understood climate change as “change in weather”.

All of the respondents pointed out that temperature, rainfall, flood and flood damage have increased significantly, during last few decades, while 33% indicated that drought was also increased. However, majority indicated that there was no change in thunder and damages due to thunder (86%) and changes of calving seasons (66%) in last few years. Majority farmers (73%) perceived that diseases increase due to climatic change as well as farmers (88%) believed milk yield reduction with climate change. Farmers’ received information on climate change from the following three major sources; radio/television (47%), extension workers (12%) and newspaper (5%). The important point was that almost all the farmers did not aware about dairy farming cause climate change impacts due to emission of greenhouse gases. Further, it was found that 67% farmers’ response mainly greenhouse gas emissions from farm manure. However, majority of farmers (84%) had taken action to cattle dung disposing, 51% managed their herd better and 21% feed concentrate to their animal. It would be helpful to reduce the emission of greenhouse gas and climate change. The findings suggested the necessity to put more effort into implementation farmers’ awareness program on greenhouse gas, climate change and willingness to take actions to reduce these problems.