Moderation effect of age on behaviour intention to adopt climate change information among smallholder farmers in the northern region of Ghana
Agriculture is the primary livelihood source for over 1.3 billion rural smallholder farmers’ worldwide. These smallholder farmers are vulnerable globally to the climate change because of variations in temperature and precipitation and also frequency and extremely intense events of the weather aff...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/119397/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/119397/1/119397.pdf |
| Summary: | Agriculture is the primary livelihood source for over 1.3 billion rural smallholder
farmers’ worldwide. These smallholder farmers are vulnerable globally to the climate
change because of variations in temperature and precipitation and also frequency and
extremely intense events of the weather affect their income, food security well as their
well-being. Some institutions and companies have started disseminating climate
information to farmers to enable them effectively and successfully mitigate and adapt to
the dangers of climate change. This study mainly aims at determining how climate
information access influence rural smallholder farmers’ decision to adopt climate smart
adaptation activities and investigating behaviour intention to adopt climate information
using the UTAUT model with the moderation effect of age. Exactly 475 respondents
were interviewed with structured questionnaire using multistage proportionate sampling
technique. Descriptive statistics, bivariate probit, correlation analysis, multiple linear
regression, and structural equation model were applied. It is revealed that most of the
farmers are illiterate and married. Age, income, extension services accessibility, and
assets were positively and significantly associated with smallholder farmers’ joint
decision to access climate information and as well espouse climate smart adaptation
strategies. The size of household was negatively and significantly related to the decision
of smallholder farmers to jointly access information about climate change and to adopt
climate-smart adaptation strategies. Performance and effort expectancies, as well as
facilitating conditions and social influence, have a positive and moderate relationship
with intended behaviour to adopt climate information while affordability had a negative
and moderate relationship with intended behavior to espouse climate information. The
structural equation model results indicate that performance and effort expectancies, as
well as social influence, are positively and significantly related to behaviour intention to
adopt climate information while affordability is significant and negatively affects
behaviour intention. The effect of performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, social
influence and affordability on behaviour intention to adopt climate information are
moderated by age. Climate information should be made very simple and packaged in the
smallholder farmers’ local languages since the majority of them are without formal
education. Those providing climate information services should make it less costly since
smallholder farmers are mostly poor people with less income. Extension agents should
also do more in educating smallholder farmers about issues of climate change and how
to get over its challenges in order to improve their livelihoods. |
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