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The Economic Value of Agrometeorological Information in Climate Change Adaptation in Vietnam
Dissertation Abstract:
This study estimated the economic value of seasonal weather forecast and meteorological information in coping with extreme weather events in Ha Tinh Province, Vietnam. It also analyzed the factors affecting farmers’ adaptive and/or remedial practices to overcome the effects of extreme weather events in agricultural production in the region.
The results of the study showed that climate change exemplified by extreme weather events such as drought, typhoon, flood, and hot and cold spell in Ha Tinh Province had a serious effect on agricultural production. Among these events, drought had the most serious negative effect to the region. These phenomena reduced the yields of major crops such as rice, peanut, and corn of the province. The study also revealed that local farmers had increasingly considered various adaptive practices to minimize the negative effects of extreme weather events in their agricultural production. Five major adaptive practices used by the farmers included changing crop varieties, switching to new cultivar types, adjusting farming agenda, following-up weather forecasts, and intercropping. Among them, following-up weather forecasts and changing crop varieties were adopted by many farmers.
Factors affecting farmers’ adaptive behavior to extreme weather events included farm size, gender, training attended, educational level, farming experience, and damage level. Of these factors, farm size and training attended significantly affected all the major adaptive practices of farmers. By contrast, household’s agricultural labor, access to credit, and membership in local organizations had no significant effect on the farmers’ adaptive strategies.
Farmers in the study area had recognized the different explicit benefits of following weather forecast news in confronting extreme weather events. Thus, many farmers used meteorological information given by the weather forecast news to schedule their agricultural production activities properly. The farmers’ practices to cope with extreme weather events based on meteorological information encompassed changing planting dates, adjusting application of inputs, and shifting harvesting calendar. Educational level, farming experience, and training attended significantly affected the farmers’ specific farm management practices based on meteorological information. By contrast, gender, damage level, and household’s agricultural labor hadno significant influence on farmers’ adjustment of agricultural production activities.
Many farmers in the study area had been aware of the importance and necessity of seasonal forecast bulletin in coping with extreme weather events in agricultural production. Thus, they were willing to pay from VND 20,000 (USD 0.9) to VND 60,000 (USD 2.6) per month for this bulletin. Bid level, age, gender, annual crop income, and membership in local organizations significantly affected farmers’ paying ability for the seasonal forecast bulletin. The mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) level for seasonal forecast bulletin of farmers was VND 46,700 (USD 2.1) per month. Total estimated economic return derived from the seasonal forecast in Ky Son commune was VND 450 million (approximately USD 20,000) per year.
The policy recommendations from this study were as follows: (1) broadening the training courses on climate change, (2) instituting policies that would promote consolidation of farmlands, (3) integrating concepts of climate change adaptation into the operation of the local organizations, and (4) further down scaling weather forecast and localizing meteorological information in other areas.