Farmer’s Adaptation to Climate Risk in the Context of China-A research on Jianghaii Plain of Yangtze River Basin

摘要

Frequently unknown climate change increases the risk of agriculture, more attention have been paid to agricultural system itself in the research field, but few has been attached to the perspective of social dimension. Based on the research on YangtzeRiver Basin of China, the paper has adopted VTilnerability theory including the exposure of agricultural ecosystem, fanners’ sensitivity to exposure and adaptive capacity to climate risk, to explain farmer’s adaptation to climate risk. It concludes that climate change has increased climate risk in agriculture and the uncertainty of agricultural production. Confronting climate risk in agriculture, different farming bodies have shown different farm and off-farm/non-farm adaptations in pre-risk, during risk and post-risk, which has reduced their short-term vulnerability. Household life cycle, pressure, institution, available resources and technologies are the key influential factors. From the adaptation in long terni, it still requires external supportand more investment including agricultural insurance system, village-level information and technology dissemination mechanism.