Climate change perceptions and adaptations for dairy cattle farmers in Jordan: Case study in North East Region - Al-Dhulel Area

This study was designed to investigate how dairy farmers of Al-Dhulel Cooperative Dairy Society (ACDS) perceive climate change, the adaptation strategies adopted by farmers to cope with the impact of climate change and the barriers to the adoption of these strategies. A 92 dairy farmers responded to a designed questionnaire that was developed to collect the data and covered farmers perception, adaptation strategies, and the barriers facing them towards adopting the strategies. The personal interviews with the farmers were performed during early January, 2020. The data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The main result obtained from the study that most of dairy farmers were aware of the climate change impact on dairy cattle performance and health. Furthermore, the adaptation strategies that were suggested have limiting factors according to farmers as a result of governmental and agricultural institutions restriction polices. Therefore, recommendations regarding new polices were suggested to facilitate the way of getting benefit from grants and financial support for improving dairy farms and to mitigate the effect of climate change on dairy cattle.