Changes in the environment from perspectives of small‑scale farmers in remote Vietnam

Abstract

Changes in living environments due to natural hazards are important indicators that affect livelihood and sustainable development, particularly for those farmers residing in poor and remote regions. The uptake of adaptive measures by these farmers is generally partial or incomplete. Thus, there is a real need to understand better the set of drivers that shapes farmers' decisions of adaptation practices, which help to minimize risks and overcome hazards so that sustainable regional development can be facilitated and maintained. We extend the theoretical framework by adding a psychological driver to the traditional Capital Approach Framework (CAF) to examine the nexus between farmers' perceptions, their adaptive assets (human, physical, financial, social, and natural capitals), and their adaptation strategies. In this study, we use survey data of 916 small-scale Vietnamese farmers to examine the research question by employing a multivariate probit model. Our results suggest that heightened perception increases the propensity of respondents to diversify their income sources away from agricultural activities and engage in better investment management. Government assistance in the form of extension training and microcredit programs demotivates farmers from adaptations, therefore redesignation of these schemes or collaboration with the private sector is necessary. Information obtained from local officers would encourage farmers to widely adapt their livelihood strategies to climate change, we thus suggest that the farmers should utilize this information as much as they can. Along with our finding of the significant impact of farm size on farmers' adaptations adoptions, the "land accumulation" program directly benefits small-scale farmers so that they are motivated to either expand productions or transfer land ownership by participating in the land market. The application of this program may help other countries to avoid land fragmentation and abandonment to ensure farmers' livelihood under climate change.