Communicational and psychological determinants of risk perception of farmers towards climate change in Madhya Pradesh

Climate change has been perceived as “very serious” problem and become a complex global hazard which poses significant challenges to the people worldwide. The paper focuses on the evaluating the risk perceived by farmers against the climatic variation specially in terms of agriculture in Bundelkhand and gird agro-climatic zones of Madhya Pradesh, India. There is need to understand farmer’s point of view, and up to what extent they are exposed to the climatic change and how they are reacting to it. A sample of 235 respondents was interviewed to find their perception on climate change. The findings revealed that majority of the farmers had high risk perception towards the climate change. The major risk perceived by the farmers were “Uncertainty in rainfall patterns is one of the major factors affecting crop production”, ranked I followed by “Adverse weather events have affected adaptation and mitigation practices over the years”, ranked II and “The livelihood pattern of farmers is changing due to changing climatic conditions”, ranked III. The risk associated with the climate variability directly affecting the agriculture and related activities and there is an urgent need to identify such more risk and find methods and make strategies to overcome and strengthen farmer’s potential to withstand the adverse situation.