Ministry of Agriculture Jihad Experts' Assessment of Sustainability of Agricultural Adaptation Policies to Climate Change

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD Student, Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Faculty of Agriculture and Engineering and Rural Development, Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Mollasani, Iran.

2 Associate Professors, Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Faculty of Agriculture and Engineering and Rural Development, Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Mollasani, Iran.

3 Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Faculty of Agriculture, Gorgan Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources University, Gorgan, Iran.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats of sustainability of adaptation policies with regard to sustainability indicators. In terms of methodological process, this study was conducted in two consecutive stages. The first stage of this research involves identification and extraction a list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to climate change adaptation policies in agriculture based on a qualitative research paradigm and utilizing focused group techniques and interview with 17 experts from Ministery of Agriculture Jihad. In the second stage of the research, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was conducted to compare pairs of criteria and sub-criteria with respect to the main goal of sustainability of policies as well as pair-wise comparison of each set of alternatives into four classes of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Data were analyzed by Expert Choice software. After determining the weight of each criterion and sub-criterion, the alternative priorities were identified as four components of strength, weakness, opportunity and threat. The results showed that environmental, economic and social criteria were the most important to achieve sustainability of policies, respectively. Also in environmental criteria, “non-emission of greenhouse gas”, in economic criteria, “helping to diversify farmers' income” and in social criteria, “attention to social participation” were identified as the most important sub-criteria.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

Alcon, F., Tapsuwan, S., Martínez-Paz, J. M., Brouwer, R., & de Miguel, M. D. (2014). Forecasting deficit irrigation adoption using a mixed stakeholder assessment methodology. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 83, 183-193.
Alhuseen, A., & Kozová, M. (2014). SWOT analysis of climate change institutional arrangment and policy mainstreaming in Sudan. Acta Environ Univ Comen, 22(2), 5-16.
Azadi, Y., Yazdanpanah, M., & Mahmoudi, H. (2019). Understanding smallholder farmers’ adaptation behaviors through climate change beliefs, risk perception, trust, and psychological distance: Evidence from wheat growers in Iran. Journal of environmental management, 250, 109456.
Bandyopadhyay, S., Wang, L., & Wijnen, M. (2011). Improving household survey instruments for understanding agricultural household adaptation to climate change: water stress and variability.
Barnett, J., & O’Neill, S. (2010). Maladaptation. Global environmental change, 2(20), 211-213.
BECCA, (2015). base bottom up climate adaptation strategy toward sustainable Europe. BASE Evaluation Criteria for Climate Adaptation (BECCA). Issue No. 3, June 2015.
Bhatasara, S., & Nyamwanza, A. (2018). Sustainability: a missing dimension in climate change adaptation discourse in Africa? Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences, 15(1), 83-97.
De França Doria, M., Boyd, E., Tompkins, E. L., & Adger, W. N. (2009). Using expert elicitation to define successful adaptation to climate change. Environmental Science & Policy, 12(7), 810-819.
Dupuis, J., & Biesbroek, R. (2013). Comparing apples and oranges: the dependent variable problem in comparing and evaluating climate change adaptation policies. Global Environmental Change, 23(6), 1476-1487.
Eriksen, S., & Brown, K. (2011). Sustainable adaptation to climate change.
Eriksen, S., Aldunce, P., Bahinipati, C. S., Martins, R. D. A., Molefe, J. I., Nhemachena, C., ... & Ulsrud, K. (2011). When not every response to climate change is a good one: Identifying principles for sustainable adaptation. Climate and development, 3(1), 7-20.
Hay, J., & Mimura, N. (2006). Supporting climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessments in the Asia-Pacific region: an example of sustainability science. Sustainability Science, 1(1), 23-35.
Hedger, M. M., Mitchell, T., Leavy, J., Greeley, M., & Downie, A. (2008). Desk review: evaluation of adaptation to climate change from a development perspective.
Masud, M. M., Azam, M. N., Mohiuddin, M., Banna, H., Akhtar, R., Alam, A. F., & Begum, H. (2017). Adaptation barriers and strategies towards climate change: Challenges in the agricultural sector. Journal of cleaner production, 156, 698-706.
Moridsadat, P., Eftekhari, R., Pourtaheri, M., & Shabanalifami, H. (2018). Analysis the Sustainability of Macro and Sectorial Agricultural Policies in Five-year Plans of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iranian Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development Research. 49 (1). 43-58.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2015). Agriculture and Climate Change. Trade and Agricultural director. OECD Publishing.
Owour, B., Mauta, W. and Eriksen, S. (2011). Strengtheningsustainable adaptation: examining interactions betweenpastoral and agropastoral groups in dryland Kenya.Climate and Development, 3(1). 42–58.
Pal, L.A. (2014). Beyond policy analysis: public issue management in turbulent times, fifth ed. Nelson Education, Toronto, ON.
Veugelers, R. (2012). Which policy instruments to induce clean innovating? Research Policy, 41(10), 1770-1778.
Vogel, B., & Henstra, D. (2015). Studying local climate adaptation: A heuristic research framework for comparative policy analysis. Global Environmental Change, 31, 110-120.
Zobeidi, T., Yazdanpanah, M., Forouzani, M., & Khosravipour, B. (2016). Climate change discourse among Iranian farmers. Climatic Change, 138(3-4), 521-535.
Journal of Rural Research
Volume 11, Issue 1
June 2020
Pages 36-49

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 11 September 2019
  • Revise Date: 14 November 2019
  • Accept Date: 04 December 2019

Share

How to cite

Statistics