ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Assessing Indigenous Knowledge through
Farmers’ Perception and Adaptation
to Climate Change in Pakistan
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Institute of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan
Submission date: 2017-08-03
Final revision date: 2018-01-31
Acceptance date: 2018-02-10
Online publication date: 2019-09-10
Publication date: 2019-12-09
Corresponding author
Muhammad Faisal Ali
University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Institute of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, 38000 Faisalabad, Pakistan
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2020;29(1):525-532
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ABSTRACT
Integrating local perceptions and indigenous knowledge along with climate change policies has
always been a neglected issue in developing countries. The approaches used are mostly originated from
western concepts, developed in totally different socio-economic, cultural and political environments
without recognizing local resources, individual opinions and knowledge. The present study tries to fill
this gap and emphasizes the realization of the importance of need and transmission of modern scientific
knowledge to local communities. So, the broader objective was to examine farmers’ perceptions about
climate change and other environmental issues through their indigenous knowledge. For this purpose,
data was collected by interviewing 386 farmers from three different agro-ecological zones of Punjab
Province, Pakistan. The methods used were problem cataloging index, weighted averages index and
constraint index. Results indicated climate change as the biggest environmental problem, whereas
scientists and the media were credited as the two most effective and reliable sources for climate
information dissemination. In order to handle the issue of climate change, government, local councils
and business and industry were assumed to be highly responsible, but farmers did not trust them.
Although farmers’ perceive climate change, due to many constraints very few of them were adapting
accordingly. The major constraints were lack of money, high cost of farm inputs and lack of knowledge
about appropriate adaptations. Findings suggest that inclusion of indigenous people in the decisionmaking
process about local and national adaptation initiatives will help policy makers collaborate with
local residents more effectively in order to better deal with the crisis of climate change.