Building climate resilience from farmers’ behaviour: A Tailored pathway from the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Grasping farmers’ actions and driving factors influencing their capacity to adapt to climate change is crucial for enhancing forward-thinking strategies and enhancing climate resilience. This contribution delves into farmers’ behaviour regarding climate change from 409 surveys randomly collected from April to December 2024 among farmers in the Mekong Delta, recognized as one of the most climatically vulnerable regions globally. Two main questions are addressed through descriptive and inferential statistics: 1) Do farmers encounter extreme events (e.g., floods, droughts) and which impacts are most recognized? and 2) How much do farmers facilitate the implementation of adaptive strategies, and what challenges diminish their resilience? Preliminary results highlighted that farmers believe their farm is exposed to extreme events (90%), mostly experiencing warmer temperatures and increased frequency and intensity of droughts (92%), which determines less reliability in water supply (88%) and increases changes in plant growth (78%). As a response, practically all farmers try to anticipate their decisions by promoting cooperation (sharing local knowledge and best practices) and using weather or climate services, while three out of four opt for reducing or improving fertilizers use, planting different varieties or crops, and introducing soil conservation techniques. However, more than 70% of the sample points to the lack of training on adaptation strategies and the high costs associated with farm-level investments as major hindrances to adaptation. These behavioural inputs about how farmers respond to climate risks can facilitate the customization of more targeted, flexible, and co-designed adaptation pathways to enhance community resilience.