Impact of Climate Change on Poverty of Rice Farmers

Abstract

Poverty alleviation has been one of the main agenda of development in most developing countries. The goal of this chapter is to assess the influence of climate change on rice farmers' poverty in Malaysia's Kedah state. Here, we provide the evidence from a case study among agricultural households in Kedah, Malaysia. Our results show that level of education, non-farm income and temperature are significant to explain the likelihood of a farmer being poor. Hence, our findings suggest that the poor farmers can decrease their poverty if the government will explore the initiative to increase their level of education. If the farmers are educated, they will be able to produce in the least costly measures. They will be able to know what crops they should produce according to the market demand. Lastly, they will be able to tackle the effect of warm temperature. The findings of our study also lend support to the view that the non-farm sector could be a viable option to reduce poverty among the rural-agricultural households. The major emphasis should be given to increase the efficiency of the farmers, enlarge the resource base of farmers through crop divergence and growth of structure.