Coconut Growers’ Knowledge and Perceptions on Climate Change and Adaptation Strategies in Puttalam District of Sri Lanka

Climate change and extreme weather events are significantly affecting the productivity of coconut in Sri Lankan coconut-growing areas, which ultimately will threaten the livelihoods of the coconut-cultivating community. The present study was undertaken to determine coconut growers’ knowledge and perceptions about climate change and adaptation strategies. The study was conducted in Puttalam district, which is more vulnerable to climate change impacts in the country using 140 coconut growers as the sample. The findings of the study emphasized that many growers have a fairly high knowledge and informed perceptions about climate change and its impacts. Further, out of five independent variables, namely age, education and farming experience were found to be positively related, while landholding and land ownership were negatively related to coconut growers’ knowledge and perceptions on climate change. The higher the educational attainment, the knowledge and perceptions on climate change were significantly higher among the respondents. Moreover, growers’ knowledge was positively and significantly associated with their perceptions and adaptation measures. The study highlighted coconut growers’ poor adaptation in most of the recommended strategies on climate change. Hence, further studies on other constraints which may limit the proper adaptation of climate change measures should be conducted.


INTRODUCTION
Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) is one of the most widely grown perennial plantation crops in Sri Lanka and is extensively cultivated in all the tropical regions of the world (Somasiri et al., 1994). It spreads over 400,000 ha of land area in all administrative districts of Sri Lanka except those at elevations above 750 masl (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2016;Somasiri et al., 1994). Coconut is considered as a multipurpose crop providing food, shelter, oil, medicine, fuel, building materials and beverage. Therefore, coconut is interwoven with the lives of the local people and considered as the "tree of life".
Annual nut production in Sri Lanka was 2,623 million in 2018 (Central Bank Sri Lanka, 2019). The coconut industry generates employment for nearly 500,000 people, contributing to nearly 0.6% of gross domestic production and 1.0% of foreign exchange earnings (Central Bank Sri Lanka, 2019;Liyanage, 1999). It is cultivated in all three agro-climatic zones of Sri Lanka, 30% in the wet zone, 50% in the intermediate zone and 20% in the dry zone. Coconut performs well under a mean annual temperature range of 27°C -29°C and a mean annual rainfall of 1,250-2,500 mm/year (Ranasinghe, 2012). The main coconut growing area consists of three administrative districts within the "Coconut Triangle"; Kurunegala, Puttalam and Gampaha representing 57% of the total coconut lands. The Southern Province contains about 12% of the coconut cultivated lands and is identified as the "Mini-Coconut Triangle" consisting of Galle, Matara and Hambantota administrative districts. The remaining coconut areas are distributed throughout the country, except for the central upcountry where the climate is not suitable for growing coconut (Department of Census and Statistics, 2002;Karunanayake, 1976).

Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture and Coconut Sector in Sri Lanka
Climate change has been emphasized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC (2007, United Kingdom, European Commission, Belgian government) as any change in climate over time that arises as a result of both human activity and natural variability. It is an inevitable phenomenon that is being experienced globally in various forms, namely temperature rise, sea-level rise, droughts, floods, hurricanes, landslides and increase in thunder activity due to greenhouse gas emissions Goyal, 2004).
Climate change continues to adversely affect the livelihoods of people in developing countries where a large proportion of the population is heavily dependent on agriculture . Nevertheless, the extent of the impact of climate change on agriculture can be minimized by improving the knowledge level, changing the perceptions and improving the level of farmers' adaptation with climate-smart strategies (Acquah et al., 2011).
Being a tropical country, Sri Lanka is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Few studies have attempted to quantify the impact of climate change on crops in terms of yield reduction and economic loss (Costa et al., 2003;Fernando et al., 2007;Wijeratne et al., 2007). Lobell, et. al. emphasized that perennial cropping systems are more vulnerable to climate change because they are long-established (Lobell, et al., 2006); but, at present, there are few studies conducted for plantation agriculture.
It is identified that climate change is projected to increase atmospheric CO 2 concentration and temperatures, and affects rainfall patterns. It has been established that the major climatic variables which influence coconut yield are rainfall, evapotranspiration, temperature, solar radiation, sunshine hours, relative humidity and wind velocity. The prevailing total amount of rainfall and minimum air temperature is significantly correlated with the percentage of button nuts shedding (Peiris and Thattil, 1998;Peiris et al., 1995Peiris et al., , 2000 which significantly affects nut yield. Also, coconut performs better with no moisture stress, and it performs moderately well where there is a minimum period of moisture stress (Somasiri et al., 1994).
Further, it has been identified that the reproductive development in coconut is more sensitive to high-temperature stress and water stress than vegetative development and the principal harmful effects are reported on nut sets (Coconut Research Institute, 2014). The most important yield-determining factor in coconut is nut setting. Reduced nut setting can be observed due to heat stress and long dry spells in coconut plantations in the dry-intermediate and dry zones, even if irrigation is practiced.
Coconut is perennial in nature and the assessment of the impact of climate change is challenging. Coconut growers' knowledge and perceptions about climate change strongly affect how they deal with climate-induced risks and uncertainties, especially on undertaking specific measures or coping strategies to mitigate the adverse impact of climate change on coconut. Hence, Raghuvanshi et al. (2017) indicated that farmers' perceptions are critical for mitigating the adverse impact of climate change on agriculture.

Coconut growers and coconut cultivation in Puttalam district of Sri Lanka
Puttalam district is situated in the North-Western province and spreads over 3,072 km 2 of total lands and 70,983.5 planted hectares (175,404 Ac), totaling around 10.5 million palms. The main agro-ecological zones of this area are Low country Intermediate (IL1, IL3) and Low country Dry (DL1, DL3). The mean annual rainfall is 1,300 mm which varies from 1,200 mm to 1,600 mm and the mean annual temperature is 30.5°C which varies from 29°C to 32°C.
A sizeable proportion of the Puttalam district population mainly depends on the agriculture sector. However, the district has been affected by an extended period of drought and severe heat stress which limits coconut productivity, and ultimately threatens people's livelihoods in rural areas. Hence, the coconut growers of this district are more vulnerable to climate change impacts than growers in other parts of the country.

METHODOLOGY
The study was conducted in Puttalam district of Sri Lanka. The study respondents comprised of 140 coconut growers, selected according to a stratified random sampling method representing the district. The heads of the selected households or their spouses were interviewed using both a 10-point Likert scale and a pretested semi-structured questionnaire. Group discussions were also conducted with randomly selected groups of coconut growers in the district. The 10-point Likert scale questionnaire was designed to assess the coconut growers' knowledge, perception and adoption of impacts of climate change. Semistructured questions were used to elicit sociodemographic information on coconut growers' including level of education, age, gender, years of farming experience, landholding, family size and land ownership.
Coconut growers were provided with a list of 14 statements to assess their knowledge level on the impacts of climate change. Each statement was set against a ten-point "Likert Scale" ranging from 'extremely knowledgeable' (10) to 'extremely poor in knowledge or unknown' (0). This way the respondents' level of knowledge was weighted. Similarly, growers were provided with a list of 32 statements to assess their level of perceptions by indicating their perceptions against a ten-point "Likert Scale" ranging from 'extremely perceived' (10) to 'extremely poor in perception or not perceived' (0). In addition, growers were provided with a list of 13 statements to evaluate the adoption levels of adaptation measures against a ten-point "Likert Scale" ranging from 'extremely adopted' (10) to 'extremely poor in adoption or not adopted' Once all the responses were coded based on the 10-point Likert Scale, correlation analysis was performed to find out the relationships in coconut growers' knowledge, perception and adaptation level on climate change. The association between independent variables (Age, Land Holding, Education, Farming Experience, Land Ownership) and dependent variables (coconut growers' knowledge and perceptions) was also analyzed. Finally, the impact of independent variables on the dependent variables was determined using regression analysis.

Socio-demographic profile of the coconut growers in Puttalam district
This socio-demographic profile of the farm households (Table 1) is believed to have differential impacts on the growers' perceptions about climate change and their adaptation ability. The age of the grower represents their experience in farming. The experienced growers are expected to have a higher probability of perceiving climate change as they are exposed to past and present climatic conditions over a longer horizon of their life span. The majority of the respondents (57.86%) were more than 50 years old followed by 39.28% of growers in the "40-50 year" age category and very low percent (2.86%) of growers were in "30-40 year" age category. Gender-wise, the composition of the study sample reveals that the large majority (85.71%) were males; and that 62.86% of the growers had 2-3 members in their families. As regards land holding, 80.71% of growers had "2-25Ac" category land holding, 17.86% were in the "25-50Ac" category and 1.43% had "50-100Ac" category landholding. Achieving higher levels of education helps growers to access information on improved technology and resources. It is evident that the majority (55%) of growers in the study sample were educated up to G.C.E. (A/L) followed by 22.86% were educated up to G.C.E. (O/L), 17.14% were Diploma or Graduates and only 5% were educated up to Grade 8. As regards their farming experience, 59.28% of the respondents had only "5-10 year" farming experience, the rest (32.14%) had "11-20 year" farming experience and only 4.28% of the respondents have been farming more than "30 years" Further, the majority of respondents (97.86%) reported owning their land.

C o c o n u t g r o w e r s ' k n o w l e d g e o r understanding about climate change
Clarifying the growers' knowledge about climate change has been a major theme of research on growers' perceptions of climate change. The findings of Yearly (2000) and Lowe et al. (2006) emphasized that public knowledge of climate change has demonstrated that people are sensitive to the information they are given and from whom.
Several key insights appeared when coconut growers were asked about their understandings of climate change. As shown in Table 2, a large majority (90.1%) of the respondents believed that deforestation has a big impact on increasing temperature and ultimately it significantly contributes to climate change. Further, they broadly perceived that human activities are the leading cause of climate change (88.6%) followed by burning fossil fuel as vehicle fuel, oil and gases cause air pollution and increase in atmospheric temperature (81.8%). The emission of greenhouse gases boosts temperature (63.3%) causing a negative impact on climate change. Moreover, 76% and 74.6% of the respondents indicated that rapid urbanization and lifestyle changes, and increase in population growth, respectively affect  The vast majority of the growers recognized that they are currently experiencing the impacts of climate change (86.4%) and climate change is a threat to sustainable development (79.1%). In addition, about 66% of the respondents recognized that climate change leads to coastal erosion and increases the occurrence of extreme weather events (eg: heat waves, tornadoes, cyclones, heavy rainfall). Further, 59-62% had recognized that climate change causes a rise in sea levels and changes in wind velocity and wind directions.

Perception of coconut growers about climate change
Perceptions will shape the knowledge, but knowledge also shapes perceptions about an object, phenomenon or event. Adger et al. (2009) indicated that the farmers' perceptions of long-term or short-term climate changes are crucial pre-indicator in the adaptation process. Therefore, coconut growers' perceptions about climate change strongly affect how they understand and deal with climate-induced risks and uncertainties and undertake specific measures to mitigate adverse impacts of climate change on coconut cultivation.
The percentage analysis of coconut growers' perception about different dimensions of climate change was given in Table 3. It could be observed that while surveying in the field, coconut growers' in the Puttalam district were unaware of the term "climate change" or "global warming" and such trends globally, but they well understand overall changes in temperature and rainfall over time. changes in precipitation patterns and volume, changing the length of dry periods and rainy periods, slight changes in the monsoon periods as well as inter-monsoon rainy periods. The same majority perceived a continuing decline in coconut yield, yellowing and drooping of more coconut fronds during dry periods, wilting and drying of more coconut fronds during dry periods and lowering of groundwater levels in their estates over the last 5-10 years. Some 37.8% of the respondents perceived the occurrence of inflorescence abortion during dry periods and about 25.7% perceived that more palms died during the dry periods over the last five years.
Studies by Sampei and Aoyagi-Usui (2009) and Akter and Bennett (2009) emphasized that exposure to mass media increases awareness and concern about the damage associated with climate change. Further, Isham (2002) revealed that social capital plays a significant role in information exchange and it is significantly associated with climate-change perceptions. Results showed that 62.8% of respondents have mass-media exposure to climate change and 69.1% reported having access to social capital (farm-to-farm extension and the number of relatives/ volunteer workers in the village). Additionally, 69.3% of growers have perceived an increase in coconut pest and disease infestations during the last 5 years due to climate change. More than half of the respondents also perceived an increase of pest and disease infestations on other agricultural crops during the last 5 years due to climate change.
Based on observations related to climatechange dimensions, it can be concluded that the majority of the respondents have felt that there have been significant changes in various parameters of climate change. The findings of Maddison (2006) emphasized that adaptation to climate change requires a two-step process, 1) farmers should first notice that climate has changed, and 2) they have to identify useful adaptation strategies and then implement them.

Adaptation strategies to climate change
Adaptation to climate change is defined as any adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities (IPCC 2007). There are several potential adaptation options to reduce moderate to severe climatic risks in agriculture. FAO (2010) stated that adaptation options that sustainably increase productivity, enhance resilience to climatic stresses and reduce greenhouse gas emissions are known as climate-smart agricultural technologies, practices and services.
Coconut growers who observed different variations in the climate over 5 to 10 years, were further asked to describe the farm-level adaptation measures undertaken in response to climate change. The results of the study demonstrated that there was a wide range of adaptation measures practiced by the coconut growers in Puttalam district to cope up with the adverse impact of climate change (Table 4).
The study findings indicated that most growers (74.9%) had applied moisture conservation methods in their estates. Further, 62.6% of growers had built and used a hose/ sprinkler/drip irrigation system during dry

No Adaptation Measures on Climate Change
Adopted growers' (%) (N = 140) 1 Apply moisture conservation methods in the estate 74.9 2 Apply organic manure to improve the soil conditions 63.7 3 Use of hose/sprinkler/drip irrigation system during dry periods 62.6 4 Access to agricultural extension services provided for coconut, intercropping and livestock production  Table 4. Adaptation measures practiced by the coconut growers periods to cope with adverse impacts of climate change, 54.1% had used tube wells and 18.6% had practiced manual watering during dry periods. It was observed that 49% had practiced agroforestry system to reduce the temperature in the estate. These findings are supported by Gbetibouo (2009) that building water-conservation/harvesting schemes is a popular adaptation strategy adopted by those who are experiencing the effects of decreased precipitation. The coconut at each stage of nut development is sensitive to soil moisture availability and temperature to varying degrees. Coconuts are primarily grown as a rain-fed crop, and studies showed that the proportion of button nuts (female flowers after fertilization) that fall prematurely from the inflorescence was closely related to total rainfall and the minimum air temperature Thattil, 1998, Peiris et al., 1995). The optimum temperature for pollen germination of coconuts was around 28°C in laboratory studies, while the maximum can go up to 39.7°C (Ransinghe et al., 2015).
Relative humidity and temperature also play a key role in nut development (Kumar et al., 2009). The available soil moisture is mainly determined by climate, hydrology and drainage, which is considered key factor that determines coconut production. Further Somasiri et al. emphasized that coconuts perform well in the absence of moisture stress and are produced moderately under a minimum period of moisture stress (Somasiri et al., 1994). The survey showed that 37.6% of the respondents practiced rainwater harvesting methods, 29.1% practiced soil conservation methods and 15.8% had constructed irrigation well in their estates. Furthermore, results revealed that 63.7% had applied organic manure to improve the soil conditions. Specifically, organic manure helps to retain moisture for a long period in the soil as well as increase soil nutrient status. There were 55.2% of respondents who planted drought-tolerant varieties. In addition, 59.1% of growers reported access to agricultural extension services for coconut, intercropping and livestock production. Some (35.5%) even had access to weather forecasting. The survey results revealed that only 2.7% of growers go for off-farm occupation during dry seasons. Dhanya and Ramachandran (2016) emphasized that climate change is recognized as one of the leading challenges affecting the performance of agriculture and associated livelihoods.
Concerning growers' adaptation measures, 10 out of 13 statements adaptation levels were less than 60% (somewhat adopted). Out of these 10 statements, 7 statements hold less than 50% (poorly adapted) adaptation level. This reveals that there may be other possible constraints that limit the coconut growers' proper adaptation and capacity to maintain essential adaptation measures to cope with the negative impacts of climate change.

Relationship between Coconut Growers' Socio-Demographic Characteristics and their Knowledge and Perceptions about Climate Change in Puttalam District
Correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the relationship between selected independent variables (Age, Landholding size, Education, Farming experience, Land ownership) and dependent variables such as coconut growers' knowledge and perceptions. After that, a t-test was used to determine the significance of the relationship between the two variables. The results obtained are presented in Table 5. Table 5 reveal that out of the five independent variables age, education and farming experience were found to be positively related while landholding and land ownership were negatively related to coconut growers' knowledge levels and perceptions on climate change. However, only the education level was found to be highly correlated with the coconut growers' knowledge and perceptions on climate change. A study by Graft and Onumah (2011) also proved that education has a significant positive effect on the perception of the farmers about climate change.

Relationship between Coconut Growers' Knowledge, Perceptions and Adaptation Measures about Climate Change
The correlation coefficient was calculated to find out the relationship among the growers' knowledge, perceptions and their adaptation options practiced (Table 6). Table 6 reveal that the coconut growers' knowledge was significantly correlated with their perceptions and adaptation measures. Further, their climate risk perceptions were also found to be markedly related to their adaptation measures.

Regression Analysis: Impact of independent variables on dependent variables
Finally, through this study, an attempt was made to find out the association between independent variables (i.e. age, landholding, education, farming experience and land ownership) and dependent variables (coconut growers' knowledge and perceptions) as well as the impact of independent variables on the dependent variables. First, Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis was done to test the association of independent variables with the dependent variables of the study. The results of the study are shown in Table 7.
As indicated in Table 7, selected independent variables have a stronger association or relationship with the coconut growers' knowledge and perceptions. Further, Multiple Regression analysis was performed and the coefficient of determination (R 2 ) (    Table 8 shows that the coefficient of determination (R 2 ) is 0.431 for coconut growers' knowledge about climate change, meaning that only 43.1% of the variation in the dependent variable could be ascribed to all five independent variables considered in the study. With R2 0.217 for coconut growers' perceptions about climate change, so only 21.7% of the variation in the dependent variable could be ascribed to independent variables considered in the study. The remaining 56.9% and 78.3% variations in the respective dependent variables of this study could be ascribed to other factors or variables not considered in this study. Hence, there may be other dominant or extraneous factors that must be studied to arrive at a valid and reliable conclusion about the factors which contribute to the coconut growers' knowledge and perceptions about climate change.

CONCLUSION
At present climate change has emerged as one of the most prominent factors for coconut cultivation in Sri Lanka. Climate changes and extreme weather events will cause coconut production losses in the major coconut growing areas of the country and ultimately threaten coconut-based livelihoods, which in turn will have adverse effects on national food security as well as the country's economy. The degree, frequency and nature of climatic changes can have serious consequences for coconut cultivation and different farming practices in Puttalam district of Sri Lanka. Hence, to cope with the negative impacts of climate change, practicing suitable adaptation measures is important. This study uses primary farmlevel data from Puttalam district in Sri Lanka to analyze the coconut growers' knowledge, perceptions and their adaptive capacities and measures to the changes in climate.
The study findings have highlighted that coconut growers' knowledge and perceptions about climate change are fairly high. They also display a fairly good understanding of various dimensions that contribute to climate change such as rainfall pattern and fluctuations, increase in temperature, changes in rainy periods and monsoon seasons, and several others. However, their low level of adaptation to climate change should be further studied focusing on other constraints which may limit coconut growers' adaptation of practices that can mitigate climate change.  Table 8. Coefficient of determination (R 2 ) of Multiple Regression Analysis