Abstract

This study investigated attitudes and risk perceptionsof climate change in farming communities in Tripoli, Libya. It focused on understandings the risk perceptions of farmers towards climate in Tripoli. Due to changes in climatic conditions like temperature and seasonal variations in terms of environmental conditions, it is crucial to analyze the farmers’ attitude towards climate change considering the research questions, do perceived risks affect attitude of farmers towards climate change, does farmers’ attitude towards changing weather affects their perceived risk and belief, does gender of farmers affect their concern about potential problems of their operation, is there a difference between male and female attitude and risk perception about climate change, does education level has any difference in the attitude and risk perception about climate change, does farmers’ age affect their perceived risk and belief towards climate change and does farmers’ monthly income affect their concern about potential problems for their operation? Quantitative method was used this study and 300 respondents were considered and then analyzed statistically using SPSS. 

The result reveal that farmers in the region change their practices to cope with increasing weather and climatic variability in order to have a long term success of their farm and in the success of Libyan agricultural sector their attitude towards changing weather they have to adapt, the changes in weather patterns damages farm operation. In the past 5 years there are more variable and unusual weather on farms and across Libya, this extreme weather condition has affected long-term management goals. Farmers attitude towards changing weather is statistically significant to perceived risk and belief, therefore farmers attitude towards changing weather affect their perceived risk and belief. The farmers are concern about increased flooding, longer dry periods and drought, increased weed and insect pressure, higher incidence of crop diseases, frequent extreme rain, saturated soil and pond water, heat stress on crops, loss of nutrients into waterways and soil erosion. There is no correlation or relationship between farmers’ attitude and risk perception about climate with regards to education level and there is no correlation or relationship between farmers’ attitude and risk perception about climate with regards to education level.

INTRODUCTION

Agronomic sensitivity to climate change is one of the most serious challenges facing the sustainability of the global food system. The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will be a boon in crop production and the negative effects of climate change, such as increased temperature and more variable form of precipitation, will have any benefit for agricultural production (Walthall et al., 2012, Ilseven,2017)). Vulnerability is defined as the intersection of exposure and sensitivity to a threat, mediated by the system’s resilience or adaptive capacity (Smit and Wandel, 2006). Since agricultural systems are human-originated ecosystems, the vulnerability of agriculture to climate change is not only due to the biophysical consequences of climate change, which Marshall et al., (2009) outline a framework for conceptualizing the connections between the biophysical and human components of agricultural vulnerability to climate change (İlseven&Bastas,2018).

Libya is a large North African country and has a desert with a high level of drought and less than 1% of the Libyan soil is arable, which makes it one of the most arid countries in the world wi ...