Impacts of climate shock response measures on poverty vulnerability of farmer households in the Mekong river delta

Abstract

The analysis of this study is based on the inherited results using the panel data of climate shocks and risks faced by farmers in 12 preventative provinces of the seven ecological regions of Vietnam as surveyed by IPSARD (2013) and the data collected from the in-depth studies with 330 farmer households sampled from six selected provinces that represent five sub-ecological areas of Mekong River Delta. The response probability models are employed to determine the impacts of weather risks on incomes of the farmer households as well as the effects of applying several climate change response measures on poverty vulnerability of the farmers. As shown by the analytical results, the poor household group is most impacted by the natural risks, which in turn also affects the level of their poverty vulnerability. To mitigate the negative impacts of extreme weather events, farmers have proactively applied different responsive measures designed to improve their resilience to climate and natural risks, such as changing crop or animal varieties, changing farming patterns, and improving production infrastructures. These measures are found to have contributed significantly and effectively in preventing productivity decline and mitigating income losses and therefore the farmers’ poverty vulnerability.