Farmers’ Perception Regarding Impact of Climate Change on Wheat Crop Production in Layyah District-Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan is at 28th amongst the countries that are going to be hurt badly by climate change. It falls in ten major wheat-producing countries of the world in terms of area, production and yield per hectare. Global warming, as a result of climate change, may negatively affect morphological characters of wheat. The present study was undertaken in district Layyah to find out the impact of climate change on wheat crop.The district had a total of three (3) tehsils(sub-divisions) and two(2) tehsilswere selected purposely which were badly affected by extreme climatic event like floods.Thereafter,there (3) union councils from each tehsil,three(3) villages from each selected union council and seven (7) farmers from each village were selected.Thus, a sample of 126 farmerswere chosen and interviewed through a pretested structured interview schedule at their fields.The data collected were analyzed using Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS).Vast majority (94.4%) of the respondents informed that climate change had effect on wheat cropproductivity.Majority (above 90%) of the respondents reported that climate change was affecting their crop almost at every stage in the way of unpredicted rains, sudden rise in temperature and long drought periods.