Abstract:
Farmers are accustomed to cope with year-to-year changes in the climate but climate change is
expected to accelerate the need and magnitude of farmers’ adaptation. Based on a survey of
farmers in Kurunegala District (89 responses), this paper assesses how farmers perceive climate
change, and how they adapted strategies as this directly affected their livelihood. Interquartile
Range and median were used to measure the perceptions and multiple response model was
adopted to understand the adaptation strategies of farmers. The small interquartile range proved
that respondents’ opinions are highly consensus on farmers’ perceptions on climate change.
Further, all respondents, which were 76, agreed with the fact that there is an increase in
temperature, supported by the trend analysis. Farmers appear to be well aware of climate
change and only 1.2% of farmers seemed not to have actively undertake adaptation measures
to counteract climate change. Indeed, almost 98% undertook some kind of remedial action. The
adaptation options observed in the study area are diverse but the main adaptation strategies of
farmers including planting short season variety and changing crop planting dates were
identified
