Vulnerability to climate change of smallholder farmers in the Hamadan province, Iran

The agriculture sector plays a key role in Iran's economy, and the majority of farmers are smallholders who are highly exposed to climate change. To assess their vulnerability to climate change, this study investigates the general views and perceptions of respondents towards climate change, climatic hazard events, and the factors contributing to vulnerability. The assessment is based on a cross sectional survey that was conducted with a random sample of 280 smallholder farmers distributed in six counties of Iran's Hamadan province which is predicted to be affected by climate change. In this study 7, 12, and 23 indicators were applied for measuring three dimensions of vulnerability: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The analysis combines two sets of climatic data which were obtained from Iran Meteorological Organization (IMO) and socio-demographics data collected by a questionnaire. According to the results the majority of respondents believed that climate change is real, and about one third of them acclaimed this phenomenon to be caused by human activity. The vulnerability assessment indicates that the majority of smallholder farmers were relatively vulnerable to climate change. Also, 13 factors highly contributed to vulnerability, including education, income, access to infrastructure, credit and land size. According to the results there is a need for the responsible governmental organizations of the Hamadan province to generate measures in order to reduce the vulnerability of smallholder farmers to climate change, and the government should reform environmental, institutional, and economic conditions to promote particular adaptation methods.