Furthering climate-smart farming with the introduction of floating agriculture in Bangladeshi wetlands: Successes and limitations of an innovation transfer.

Although floating farming, a climate-smart practice, is a response to climate change challenges facing agriculture in wetland areas, the adoption of floating agriculture in Bangladesh wetland areas (also known as Haor) is slow. The purpose of our study was to identify the factors that motivate and barriers that inhibit the adoption of floating agriculture in the Haor region in Bangladesh's Kishoreganj district. To achieve our purpose, we used Roger's five-stage innovation-decision theory. We collected data from a sample of 120 Haor rural farmers using a quantitative questionnaire answered via a personal interview. We used a binary logistic regression to identify the factors that predict farmers' motivational actions in adopting floating agriculture. In addition, we rank ordered the data to identify the obstacles that prohibit farmers from implementing floating agriculture. The results demonstrate that education, training related to floating agriculture, credit received, communication behavior, trialability and observability, and complexity in practicing floating agriculture motivate farmers to adopt floating agriculture. The results also show that climatic factors (e.g., high waves and excessive rainfall, aquatic plant scarcity) and non-climatic factors (e.g., inadequate demonstration plots, conflict, and political power abuse) inhibit adoption of floating agriculture. Our study provides suggestions for increasing farmers' adoption of floating agriculture in wetland areas.

Sustainable livelihood capital and climate change adaptation in Pakistan's agriculture: Structural equation modeling analysis in the VIABLE framework.

This study aims to assess the role of sustainable livelihood capital, the mediation of investments and farming purposes, and the moderation of climatic and non-climatic factors in the adaptation process, particularly in the aspects of Crop, Farm, Irrigation, and Economic Management. Moreover, guided by the VIABLE (Values and Investments for Agent-Based Interaction and Learning in Environmental Systems) framework, we analyze stakeholders' actions, priorities, and goals in the climate change adaptation process. A structured questionnaire was designed based on a five-point Likert scale covering the concepts of livelihood capital, climate change adaptation, investment priorities, farming constraints, and farmers' decision-making factors. Field data were collected from 800 farmers during December 2021 to February 2022 in the irrigated agricultural regions in the Indus Plain of the Punjab and Sindh provinces, Pakistan. We employed the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling approach to the VIABLE framework (VIABLE-SEM) to analyze the collected data. The results confirm livelihood capital as the most significant determinant (beta = 0.57, effect size = 0.503) for farmers' adaptation strategies in the Indus plain. Other variables, such as the principal purpose of farming, available investment options, natural and human constraints, appear less important. We identified 13 significant viability pathways that show investment priorities, farming purposes, and constraints faced by the farmers in climate change adaptation. The study also found that non-climatic factors negatively influence (beta = -0.156) the relationship between capital and adaptation, while climatic factors positively influence (beta = 0.050) this relationship. Interestingly, the presence of these influencing factors increases the adaptive capacity of farmers. These findings have important implications for policymakers and researchers in designing and implementing effective climate change adaptation strategies in the agricultural sector of Pakistan.