Assessing Stakeholders’ Perception and Adaptation Strategies against Impacts of Climate Change on Agricultural Production (Wheat): A Case Study of Kabul, Afghanistan
Assessing Stakeholders’ Perception and Adaptation Strategies against Impacts of Climate Change on Agricultural Production (Wheat): A Case Study of Kabul, Afghanistan

Summary/Abstract: Climate change has serious environmental, economic, and social impacts on the agricultural community inAfghanistan. A combination of many factors, including low socioeconomic situation, poor infrastructure, extreme poverty,rapid population growth, and low adaptive capacity, exerts the agricultural community at extreme vulnerability. Utilizingadaptation strategies by farmers and policymakers plays an important role in minimizing the impacts of climate change.It is important to know how stakeholders perceive the impact of climate change that influences their livelihoods, andthe way they use adaptation strategies. This study assessed stakeholders’ perceptions of climate change and vulnerabilitybased on information that was collected from literature and the stakeholders themselves through surveys and interviews.Therefore, the study is primarily focused on Stakeholders’ perception of climate change, effective variables, the impactof climate change on wheat production, and adaptation strategies. Findings revealed that stakeholders had concernsabout the negative impact of climate change on crop production. Among the farmers, 90.4% and 72.8% believed thatdrought and temperature trends had already increased, and only 27.3 % of them thought that rainfall had decreased.The belief of a decrease in crop production due to climatic challenges was recorded by 90.9% and 80% of farmers andagricultural organization workers, respectively. Farmers reported a decrease in crop production of over 46%, and they uti-lized alternative and tolerant varieties as a means of adapting to the changes and of limiting crop reduction. Agriculturalorganization workers recommended some strategies including cultivation of adaptive seeds, crop rotation, water resourcemanagement, jungle protection, tree planting, increasing public awareness, agriculture machinery, and greenhouse crea-tion, but 33.4 % of them did not provide any suggestions. Stakeholders’ perception and adaptation practices could beimproved by the support of organized cooperatives, policy making, training programs, and development of relevantstrategies.

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