Eleventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Climate changes greatly affect agricultural crop production and the associated farming community. The magnitude of the climatic stressor, the sensitivity and capacity of the affected communities to adapt with such stressors affect farmer vulnerability. This study assessed the vulnerability of paddy farmers to climate change variability in Peninsular Malaysia. The study employed an integrated vulnerability assessment approach using three component of vulnerability i.e. exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Household survey was conducted using multi- stage systematic random sampling on 450 sampled respondents to measure their adaptive capacity. 22.9% of respondents were found to be less vulnerable, 32% were vulnerable and45.1% were highly vulnerable. Based on granaries, MADA has the highest vulnerability followed by KADA with IADA as the least vulnerable. Ordinal logistic regression revealed that 17 factors have significant influence on the vulnerability outcome of the respondents. Conclusively, the respondents in the study areas are vulnerable to the effects of climate change variability. Therefore, decision makers should tailor policies to address local specific conditions by placing climate change vulnerability issues within the broader developmental context.