Environmental Sensitivity of farmers in intensive subsistence agriculture: The case from Madagama Agrarian Service Area in Moneragala

Abstract

The farmers who engage in intensive subsistence agriculture directly depends on the natural environment and its processes. Accordingly, the farmers must have an appropriate environmental understanding of their natural environment. In intensive subsistence agriculture, the framers are constantly connected with environmental factors and processes like weather, topography, soil, drainage, and vegetation, etc. Especially, in the Dry Climatic Zone of Sri Lanka, there are many environmental fluxes Belong unaware the above environmental factors can create environmental problems like soil erosion, soil degradation, deforestation, salinity, forest burning and biological threats. Likewise, the main objective of the current research is to examine the level of environmental sensitivity of rural farmers and how they apply their knowledge to sustain agriculture. This study was done under the approaches of Agricultural Geography and Human Ecology with the mixed method. A sample of fourteen farmers was selected to collect primary data from the Thambana domain belonging to the Madagama Agrarian Services Area in Moneragala District. The random sampling method was applied to Madagama selected as the simple according to a random sampling method to obtain primary data. Primary data were collected by questionnaires, interviews and site observation. Quantitative data was analyzed by MS excel and GIS software, then produced ables and charts for presenting evidence. The study clearly shows that the environmental sensitivity of farmers is significantly low and consequently, the research revealed that the lack of environmental awareness has led to environmental problems such as greening, forest burning, soil degradation, salinity, animal hunting, and wild animal invasions, and environmental pollution. The farmer awareness programs on their natural environment should be conducted by the Agrarian service centers because all the farmers in Dry Climatic Zone suffer from the results of climate changes.