Climate Risk Management 34 (2021) 100368

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Climate Risk Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/crm

Adaptation strategies and land productivity of banana farmers

under climate change in China
Yueji Zhu *, Qi Yang, Cheng Zhang
Management School, Hainan University, Haikou, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Climate change has become a critical challenge to land productivity in developing countries.
Climate change Adaptation strategies can increase farmers’ resilience to climate change in agricultural produc­
Adaptation strategy tion. Many studies have explored how farmers adapted to climate change on the underlying
Land productivity
premise that they homogeneously have a complete knowledge about climate change adaptation
Smallholder farmers
Social network
strategies. However, the knowledge of smallholder farmers can be incomplete and heterogeneous
particularly under climatic shocks. And the role of social network in farmers’ adaptation decisions
cannot be neglected. We specify social network into formal social tie (cooperative membership),
and informal social tie (to local farmers and agricultural input retailers). This paper is the first
attempt to examine the heterogeneous impact of social ties on farmers’ adaptation decisions, and
further assess the effect of adaptation strategies on land productivity under climate change using
Augmented Inverse Probability Weights (AIPW) estimator, based on the primary data collected
from banana farmers in China. The results show that 55 percent of banana farmers adopted
adaptation strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change in farming practices. Out of eight
coping strategies, diversifying crops, increasing chemical use, increasing irrigation and planting
trees were prioritized measures used by banana farmers. Both formal and informal social ties of
farmers exerted a significant impact on farmers’ adaptation decisions. Participation in agricul­
tural cooperatives and tie to agricultural input retailers increased farmers’ uptake rate of adap­
tation strategies. In contrast, tie to local farmers hindered farmers from taking active actions to
combat climate change. We also found that the adaptation strategies significantly increased the
land productivity of banana farmers. Interestingly, the land productivity of adopters was more
influenced by the formal social tie (cooperative membership); while the informal social tie (to
agricultural input retailers) affected that of non-adopters. These findings highlight the importance
of different social ties of smallholder farmers in designing policy package to increase their re­
sponses to climate change and improve land productivity in developing regions.

1. Introduction

Climate change has been widely recognized as a critical threat to land productivity in developing countries (World Bank, 2020a;
2020b). Better management practices can increase crop production with land resources, whilst annual temperature variability may
significantly undermine production performance (Rahman and Anik, 2020). According to the FAO (2020a, b), the average temperature

* Corresponding author at: No. 58, Renmin Avenue, Meilan District, Haikou 570228, China.
E-mail address: zhuyueji@126.com (Y. Zhu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2021.100368
Received 13 June 2021; Received in revised form 22 September 2021; Accepted 22 September 2021
Available online 30 September 2021
2212-0963/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Y. Zhu et al. Climate Risk Management 34 (2021) 100368

changes in Asia and Africa are positive 1.369 and 1.415 degrees Celsius respectively in 2019, compared with a baseline climatology
corresponding to the period from 1951 to 1980. Generally, the climate indicators are not likely independent to each other. For
example, changing precipitation is interrelated to temperature variability in a given region (Cook et al., 2014). Rising temperatures
and dramatic precipitation variations reduce agricultural yields and affect existing cropping patterns of farmer households. The
negative impact can lead to an estimated economic loss of 6.6% of global GDP by this century (Takakura et al., 2019). Unfortunately,
farmers who hold limited land resources and agricultural technologies in developing countries are more often exposed to the impact of
climate change. They are probably less educated, and lack appropriate knowledge and skills to tackle the challenges under climate
change. In the past few decades, extreme climate-induced events, such as floods, droughts and pest disasters, hit vulnerable small-scale
farms of hundreds of millions of households in developing regions (Nthambi et al., 2021) and caused severe threats to their livelihoods
as well as national food security (Nigussie et al., 2018). Actions need to be taken to improve farmers’ active responses to climate
change and enhance land productivity to stabilize food supply in the developing regions.
Many studies have discussed factors that affect farmers’ adaptation decisions under climate change (Arbuckle et al., 2015; Liu et al.,
2019; Li et al., 2021). Adaptation strategies can be defined as actions farmers take in agricultural production for coping with climatic
variability. Farmers may introduce new crops (e.g. drought-resistant crops), change crop varieties and planting calendar, apply crop
rotation, buy farm insurances or use novel management practices for water and soil to increase agricultural resilience to climate
change impacts (Moniruzzaman, 2015; Lei et al., 2016; Shikuku et al., 2017; Nigussie et al., 2018; Fahad et al., 2020; Jørgensen et al.,
2020; Khan et al., 2020). These strategies are varying from different areas and crops, and farmers’ application decisions are determined
by distinct factors. Demographic and socio-economic characteristics of farmers are proved as factors that can influence farmers’ choice
of climate change adaptation strategies (Esfandiari et al., 2020; Ojo and Baiyegunhi, 2020). For example, it has been found that male
and female may choose different adaptation strategies in farming practices (Ngigi et al., 2017), and farmers’ education levels also
affect their decisions (Khanal et al., 2018; Faisal et al., 2021). Farm size can affect farmers’ decisions of adaptation to climate change
(Trinh et al., 2018). Farmers with large farm are more often able to take actions to mitigate climate change impacts (Quiroga et al.,
2020). Increasing precipitation variability can affect farmers’ arrangement of land resources, e.g. leasing land to others (Zhang et al.,
2018a). Farm experience can positively lead to farmers’ changing planting dates (Tessema et al., 2018). The off-farm income can be
used to support farm management such as the adoption of conservation techniques and new varieties to increase productivity and
strengthen agricultural sustainability under climate change (Thinda et al., 2020). Researchers found that farmers tend to change the
crops and varieties rather than to improve agricultural infrastructure for adapting to climate change (Yu et al., 2014). Generally,
infrastructure enhancement (e.g. irrigation system) has positive externalities and requires public sector involved for coordination and
negotiation among farmers to avoid free-riders (Zhang et al., 2018b; Zhang et al., 2018a).
One of the underlying assumptions for farmers’ decision-making in many studies is that they homogeneously possess complete
knowledge about climate change adaptation strategies (Artur and Hilhorst, 2012; Li et al., 2021). However, smallholder farmers’
knowledge is heterogeneous and somehow incomplete concerning climate change adaptation strategies in developing countries. Many
smallholder farmers cannot fully understand the strategies and make distinct choices in agricultural production. Thus, the reality to
some extent contradicts the above assumption. Particularly, smallholder farmers possess limited knowledge to deal with unusual
scenarios in production and may seek help from their social networks for making adaptations. Farmers’ adaptation behavior can be
stimulated by the access to knowledge pool through socio-agricultural networks (Li et al., 2017). Interesting evidence has shown that
farmers hold a negative attitude towards climate change adaptation techniques though they realize climate is changing (Zamasiya
et al., 2017). They may not have enough knowledge to take concrete actions though they have perceived changes in climate (Tripathi
and Mishra, 2017).
To overcome the obstacle, farmers can acquire both scientific and local knowledge from formal and informal organizations and
reduce uncertainties in production (Zhang et al., 2018b; Abid et al., 2020). First, with respect to farmers’ learning over formal net­
works, existing literature reveals that there is cognitive gap between experts and farmers for understanding about climate change and
adaptation practices (Stričević et al., 2020), and this gap can be narrowed by involving farmers in some formal organizations (Hasan
and Kumar, 2019), e.g. cooperatives. Participation in agricultural organizations can formulate new social ties for farmers with skilled
farmers and technicians. These ties as a sort of social capital can facilitate knowledge sharing and encourage farmers to participate in
the process of climate change adaptation (Saptutyningsih et al., 2020). Second, in terms of learning over informal networks, farmers’
indigenous knowledge plays a vital role in their decision making of adaptation to climate change (Swami and Parthasarathy, 2020).
Social interactions through farmers’ informal networks are associated with evolution of the innovations that enable farmers to adapt to
changing environment (Tran et al., 2019). Informal and spontaneous learning among farmers can facilitate knowledge sharing for
developing sustainable climate adaptation practices (Nguyen et al., 2019). Mutual social ties of farmers can generate both short-term
responses and long-term measures to mitigate climate change impacts (Ingold, 2017). Social norms also facilitate farmers to adopt new
practices (Doran et al., 2020).
However, the effect of formal and informal networks on farmers’ response to climate change has not been carefully differentiated in
previous studies (Saptutyningsih et al., 2020; Valenzuela et al., 2020). Different ties in farmers’ social networks can have heteroge­
neous effect on their decisions. For example, farmers have informal interactions with other local farmers and agricultural input re­
tailers in the village, and the knowledge gap between farmers and retailers is obviously larger than that between farmers. It possibly
has more positive externalities if knowledge sharing happens between farmers and retailers, while the tie with local farmers may
hinder the diffusion of new adaptation strategies assuming that farmers lack appropriate knowledge. This paper considers agricultural
cooperative as representative for farmers’ formal network, and local farmers and retailers as representative for farmers’ informal
network.
Assuming that farmers’ adaptation to climate change is influenced by their social networks rather than perfect calculation of cost-

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benefit of related strategies, it becomes important to assess the impact of farmers’ adaptation strategies on land productivity in farming
practices. The existing literature revealed that the average net income per farm of those who adopted the strategies was higher than
that of non-adopters (Ojo and Baiyegunhi, 2020). Other researchers also confirmed that adequate irrigation facilities could increase net
crop income despite rising temperatures (Hossain et al., 2019). Nevertheless, crop income is highly correlated to fluctuations in the
prices of products in the market. In other words, the production variation caused by climate change does not imply a decline in net crop
income. Thus, this variable may not correctly manifest the performance of farmers’ adaptation strategies in agricultural production.
This paper uses crop yield per unit of land to measure land productivity of each farm and compare it between two groups of farmers
(adopters and non-adopters).
Banana was ranked as the second-largest fruit in the world in 2019, and an important crop for smallholder farmers in some
developing countries, such as India (3046 million tons), China (1165.57 million tons), Indonesia (728.07 million tons) etc. (FAOSTAT).
Banana farmers from China are chosen for an empirical study in this paper for following reasons: first, China is the second-largest
producer of fresh bananas followed India, but the harvest area has been shrinking dramatically in recent years and the number in
2018 was decreased to the level in 2011 at around 0.38 million hectares (FAOSTAT). In addition to the impact of market price
fluctuations, the outcome is largely attributed to frequent occurrence of climate-induced events such as typhoon, droughts and dis­
eases. Attention is urgently needed since climate change may undermine land productivity and threaten the sustainable development
of banana industry in these developing regions. Second, smallholder farmers are still important foundation as banana producers in
rural China, and they merely rely on limited land resources and incomplete knowledge for coping with climate change impacts. Their
farming practices are vulnerable to climate variability and require more support from the public sector and other agencies. Under­
standing farmers’ adoption of adaptation strategy and its impact on land productivity will enable stakeholders to better implement
policies or schemes that can enhance farmers’ resilience to climate change and land productivity for sustainable production in
agriculture.
This study takes the case of banana farmers in China to assess the impacts of social ties on farmer’s adaptation decisions and land
productivity. Specifically, there are two objectives in the present study. The first objective is to identify heterogeneous effect of
farmers’ social network on their uptakes of adaptation strategies to mitigate climate change impacts, in particular to detect possible
negative effect of social ties of farmers which has been rarely discussed in previous studies. The second objective is to evaluate the
impact of farmers’ adaptation strategies on land productivity in farming practices. Considering the possible selection bias of sample
farmers, AIPW estimator is used in the treatment effect model to calculate the marginal impact of adaptation strategies on land
productivity (Glynn and Quinn, 2010). More importantly, the present study also contributes to the literature by investigating different
social ties in affecting land productivity in different groups of farmers.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces the study area and data collection in main producing
provinces; the effect of social network on banana farmers’ uptake of adaptation strategies and land productivity has been modeled in
section 3; the empirical results and discussion are given in section 4 and section 5, respectively; the final section presents the con­
clusions and policy implications.

2. Study area and data collection

2.1. Study area

The three provinces of south China, including Hainan, Yunnan and Guangdong, are the main banana producing areas. Bananas are

Fig. 1. Banana harvest areas of three provinces from 2000 to 2018. Data source: CNBITS.

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suitable for growing in humid tropical climates, and this requirement can be met in southern Guangdong, Southern Yunnan and
Western Hainan. According to data from China’s National Banana Industry Technology System (CNBITS), the production quantity of
banana in Guangdong, Yunnan, and Hainan were 4.07, 2.63 and 1.21 million tons respectively in 2018. The sum of three numbers
accounts for more than 70 percent of the total output of China in that year (FAOSTAT).
However, the harvest area of Guangdong and Hainan appears declining in recent years, while the number of Yunnan keeps an
upward trend (Fig. 1). It is highly associated with climate change impacts. The statistics of the China Meteorological Administration
shows that Guangdong and Hainan were the most frequently hit by typhoons from 1988 to 2018. During the period, Guangdong
suffered for twelve times and Hainan for nine times. Though typhoon is rare in Yunnan, unpredicted droughts caused by temperature
rise are challenging for banana farmers in these mountainous regions. In addition, severe crop diseases (e.g. Panama disease) are also
threatening the banana production in the three provinces. These factors may lead to a large number of production loss in harvest time
and further discourage farmers from growing bananas. In this context, farmers’ adaptation strategies have been gradually developed to
reduce the risk of extreme climate events.

2.2. Sampling and data collection

The data of this study was collected through a farmer household survey in 2019 using a multistage sampling method. In the first
stage, three main producing provinces were selected, namely Guangdong, Hainan and Yunnan. Fourteen counties with high density of
banana production were selected, including five from southern Guangdong, three from western Hainan and six from southern Yunnan.
Yunnan is a typical mountainous region, and banana growers are more scattered. In the second stage, our team chose two towns from
each county and one to two villages in each town. Towns are administrative units for villages in rural China. Finally, around 20 farmers
from each village were randomly selected for a face-to-face interview based on a structured questionnaire. The sample distribution is
given in Table 1.
The survey team consisted of graduate and undergraduate students majoring in agricultural economics and management. They
were trained to understand all questions in the questionnaire and strictly follow the code of conduct for data collection, for example,
avoiding data distortion caused by interfering farmers’ answers. A pilot survey was conducted in early July 2019 to check the
appropriateness of the questionnaire and also give a chance for team members to practice. Based on the feedback, we improved the
questionnaire and executed the formal survey from July to November 2019. Finally, we obtained the dataset including 605 farmer
households which were valid out of 632 respondents.

2.3. Data description

2.3.1. Variables and measurement

The definition of variables and descriptive statistics are given in Table 2. Two main explained variables are farmers’ adaptation and
land productivity. Out of sampling farmers, 332 farmers adopted measures to adapt to climate change in banana production, while 273
farmers are not. Eight types of adaptation strategies are considered in the survey, and will be discussed in next sub-section. Following
existing literature (Wang et al., 2021), characteristics of individuals and farm households are included in this study as control vari­
ables. The individual characteristics are represented by age, sex, minority, education, farming experience, village cadre and health
condition; while the household characteristics include distance to bus center, family labor, land area, land fertility, off-farm work and
residential province.
With respect to social network, cooperative membership is considered as a formal network of banana farmers, and tie to local
farmers and agricultural input retailers represent their informal networks in villages. There were 134 farmers who participated in
cooperatives, indicating the cooperative merely involved a small group of banana farmers. Cooperatives in rural China are usually led
by skilled farmers or entrepreneurs. This form of organization can be responsible for purchasing inputs or selling products for
smallholder farmers, as well as facilitating knowledge sharing among cooperative members. The cooperation can increase farmers’
resilience to climate change. Agricultural input shops are also important information exchange points in rural areas. These shops are
allowed to sell inputs only if they can get a license from local authorities. The retailers are usually qualified technicians who can offer
information services or technical support for farmers before and after they sell seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and other agricultural
inputs. When farmers encounter issues related to banana crops, both formal and informal social network can support them by
providing information or knowledge of solutions.
Farmers have distinct perceptions of climate change or extreme weather events, and may take different actions in agricultural
production (Wang et al., 2020). Farmers’ awareness and perceptions regarding climate change can influence their choice of farming
practices (Singh et al., 2016; de Sousa and Casanoves et al., 2018). Farmers’ perception of droughts may affect their adoption of
adaptation strategy, but does not directly influence land productivity of their farms. Therefore, “drought perception” can be used as an
instrumental variable in subsequent estimation equations. In contrast, farmers’ perception of typhoon is not suitable because there are
no typhoon incidents in Yunnan, but droughts happened to all the three provinces and famers have different perceptions as a typical
sign of climate change.

2.3.2. Adaptation strategies of banana farmers

Eight adaptation strategies of banana farmers are considered in this study. Some strategies (e.g. increasing chemical use) can be
also used for pursuing more profit for farmers, so we directly asked respondents in the survey what strategies they have adopted to
combat climate change. For example, more chemical input is required when insects increase due to rising temperature, or for reducing

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Table 1
Sample distribution.
Province County Respondents Percentage

Guangdong Gaozhou, Leizhou, Lianjiang, Suixi, Xuwen 214 35.37

Hainan Changjiang, Chengmai, Lingao 230 38.02
Yunnan Baoshan, Jinghong, Dehong, Lincang, Wenshan, Jiangcheng 161 26.61
Total 14 605 100

Table 2
Variables and descriptive statistics.
Variable Description Mean Std. Dev.

land productivity Log form of banana production (in KG) per unit (Mua) of land 7.81 0.794
adaptation 1 = adopted adaptation measures to climate change; 0 = otherwise 0.549 0.498
Social network
cooperative member Farmer has participated in a cooperative: 0.221 0.416
1 = yes; 0 = otherwise
tie to local farmers 1 = no contact with local farmers; 4.05 0.877
5 = extremely close contact with local farmers
tie to retailers 1 = no contact with agricultural input retailers; 2.008 1.181
5 = extremely close contact with retailers

Individual characteristics
age Farmers’ age (years) 48.248 9.923
sex 1 = male; 0 = female 0.83 0.376
minority 1 = national minority; 0 = Han people 0.197 0.398
education Farmer’s education level (years) 8.119 3.127
farming experience Experience in agriculture (years) 25 11.651
village cadre 1 = is a village cadre; 0 = otherwise 0.23 0.421
health condition Farmer’s health condition: 1 = very bad health; 5 = very good health 4.005 0.945

Household characteristics
distance to bus center Distance of farmer’s residence to bus center in Kilometer 7.8 8.944
family labor Number of family members engaged in banana production 2.24 0.953
land area Log form of banana planting area in Mu 2.379 1.281
land fertility The farmer reports his/her land is fertile: 0.721 0.453
1 = yes; 0 = otherwise
off-farm work 1 = the farmer was engaged in off-farm work; 0.093 0.29
0 = otherwise
Hainan 1 = from Hainan province; 0 = otherwise 0.38 0.486
Yunnan 1 = from Yunnan province; 0 = otherwise 0.266 0.442
Guangdong 1 = from Guangdong province; 0 = otherwise 0.354 0.479

Instrumental variable
drought perception The farmer perceived more droughts than they did 5 years ago: 1 = yes; 0 = otherwise 0.139 0.346

Note: a 1 mu = 1/15 ha. Land productivity is calculated by dividing total banana output by land area.

growth period of crops. Fig. 2 presents the number of adopters for each strategy in the three provinces in 2018. The most frequently
adopted strategy of banana farmers is diversifying crops in agricultural production. It has been a common strategy to combat climate
change because biodiversity can help farmers increase the resilience of the agricultural system (Vignola et al., 2015). Increasing
chemical use is the second priority strategy adopted by banana farmers. Using more chemicals can shorten banana’s growth period and
reduce its exposure to possible climate-induced events. The third and fourth priority strategies are increasing irrigation and planting
trees. Both can be used to solve the problem of water shortage in banana production. In addition, banana crops are protected from the
possible damage of typhoons if more trees are planted around the fields. Fifty-three farmers from Guangdong and Yunnan bought
insurance to manage the risk of climate change. Interestingly, no banana farmers used commercial insurances in Hainan. According to
our field research, there were no corresponding insurances available to small-scale farmers. Fifty-two farmers chose to grow more
short-term crops to reduce the exposure of corps to extreme weather events, while a few were shifting to other sectors such as livestock
production, which is also a strategy to avoid the potential risk of climate change (Escarcha et al., 2020). Also, some banana farmers
self-reported other measures, such as connecting banana plants using strings to increase the strength of wind resistance, to adapt to
climate change.
Comparatively, banana farmers in Hainan and Guangdong are more active in using adaptation strategies in 2018. The total number
of farmers who responded to climate change is 121 in Hainan, 119 in Guangdong and 92 in Yunnan1. Two possible reasons are
considered to explain the subtle difference. First, Yunnan has less extreme climate events compared with the other two provinces. As

1
Please note that multiple choices of adaptation strategies can be made by each farmer in Fig. 2.

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Fig. 2. Banana farmers’ adaptation strategies to climate change in 2018.

mentioned before, typhoon rarely hits this area according to the meteorological record. Farmers were less motivated to take actions to
combat climate change. Second, Yunnan is a mountainous region, and farmers have higher vulnerability due to limited resources and
low adjustment capabilities in response to climate change (Omerkhil et al., 2020). China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that
the GDP per capita of the rural residents in Yunnan was 2641 CNY (about 389 USD) in the first season of 2018. The Number was smaller
than that of the rural residents in Hainan (527 USD) and Guangdong (734 USD), indicating that banana farmers in Yunnan may have
fewer resources to invest in adaptation strategies.

2.3.3. Social network of adopters and non-adopters

Table 3 reports the descriptive statistics of the core variables of adopters and non-adopters. First of all, the land productivity of
farmers who took actions to adapt to climate change was higher than that of those who did not. The difference in land productivity is
statistically significant between the two groups of farmers, according to the result of T-test. Secondly, more adopters participated in the
agricultural cooperative than non-adopters, implying that cooperative membership which enables farmers to formulate formal social
network can be a possible stimulus for banana farmers to apply adaptation strategies in coping with climate change impacts. In
farmers’ informal networks, both tie to local farmers and tie to agricultural input retailers were significantly different between the
groups. Roughly, banana farmers interacted more closely with local farmers than with retailers in their informal networks. Comparing
the two groups, adopters were more connected with retailers than non-adopters, while non-adopters held stronger ties with local
farmers. The effect of social network on farmers’ decisions may be negative and heterogeneous. It deserves a further discussion
regarding the role of different ties in farmers’ adaptation behavior and land productivity under climate change.

3. Estimation strategy

3.1. Estimating the effect of social network on farmers’ adaptation to climate change

The binary Logit model is used to estimate the effect of social network on farmers’ adoption decisions. The dependent variable
“adaptation” is a dichotomous choice. If a farmer used any adaptation strategy to mitigate the climate change in 2018, the value of this
variable is given as 1; otherwise, 0. Following previous studies (Alauddin and Sarker, 2014; Trinh et al., 2018; Booth et al., 2020; Khan
et al., 2020), the probability of farmer i’s adoption of adaptation strategies can be modeled as follows:
exp(βXi )
Pr(adaptationi = 1) = (1)
1 + exp(βXi )

where Xi is a vector of variables that affect the farmer i’s adoption of adaptation strategies, and β denotes a vector of coefficients of the
variables. The probability of the farmer i not adopting adaptation strategies is given:
1
Pr(adaptationi = 0) = (2)
1 + exp(βXi )
Thus, we can obtain the ratio of the two probabilities:

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Table 3
Descriptive statistics of the core variables for two groups.
Non-adopters Adopters

Mean Mean Diff

land productivity 7.740 (0.876) 7.868 (0.716) − 0.128**

Social network
cooperative member 0.165 (0.372) 0.268 (0.444) − 0.103***
tie to local farmers 4.121 (0.91) 3.991 (0.846) 0.130*
tie to retailers 1.861 (1.113) 2.130 (1.223) − 0.269***

Observations 273 332

Notes: standard deviation is given in parentheses. Asterisks *** indicate p < .01; ** indicate p < .05; * indicates p < .10.

Pr(adaptationi = 1)
= exp(βXi ) (3)
Pr(adaptationi = 0)
If we specify the vector Xi , then the logarithmic form on both sides of Equation (3) is constructed as follows:
[ ]
Pr(adaptationi = 1)
Ln = β1 SN i + β2 controli + εi (4)
Pr(adaptationi = 0)

Where SNi represents the variables of the farmer i’s social network, controli denotes other variables that may also influence farmers’
decision including farmer i’s individual and household characteristics, and “drought perception” (see Table 2), and εi is a random error
term.

3.2. Estimating effect of farmers’ adaptation to climate change on land productivity

In the context of banana production in China, farmers make decisions of adaptation strategies themselves. Those who are active to
adapt to climate change are more capable of allocating resources than average farmers in agricultural practice. However, this type of
capability of farmers cannot be measured appropriately. The self-selection bias may result in an incorrect estimation based on Equation
(5), so the treatment effect model is used to analyze the effect of farmers’ adaptation to climate change on land productivity.
Farmers’ adaptation to climate change can be regarded as a binary treatment in the sample. The impact of farmers’ social network
and adaptation strategy on land productivity can be estimated using a linear regression model. The primary regression function is
constructed as follows:
landproductivityi = γ 1 adaptationi + γ 2 SN i + γ3 controli + μi (5)

where landproductivityi is the banana yield of the farmer i, adaptationi is an endogenous dummy variable to present whether farmer i
takes measures to combat climate change, SNi is the core explanatory variable to be examined in this paper, control variables are
denoted as controli , γ 1 , γ2 , γ3 are coefficients of these variables, and μi is a random error term of this equation.
The binary decision of farmer i’s adaptation can be modeled as the outcome of an unobserved latent variable, adaptation*i .
Following Ma and Abdulai (2019), it can be estimated based on a linear function:

adaptation*i = α1 SN i + α2 controli + α3 instrumenti + θi (6)

where instrument i is “drought perception” of farmer i as an instrumental variable in this equation. And the observed adaptation decision
to climate change in farmer i’s production is
{
1, if adaptation*i > 0
adaptationi = (7)
0, otherwise

Several estimation strategies can be used to calculate the average treatment effect. For example, Propensity Score Matching (PSM)
estimator is applicable when the treatment equation can be specified correctly. Both Augmented Inverse Probability-Weights (AIPW)
and Inverse Probability-Weighted Regression Adjustment (IPWRA) are doubly robust estimators (Linden et al., 2016). They merely
require practitioners to specify the treatment equation and outcome equation, and the estimation result of the average treatment effect
is robust as long as one of the equations is correctly given (Glynn and Quinn, 2010). Thus, we employ the AIPW to estimate the average
treatment effect of farmers’ adaptation to climate change on their land productivity, and the IPWRA is used to examine the robustness
of AIPW estimation results. Equation (5) is the outcome equation and the treatment equation is given as Equation (6) in present study,
thus the estimated ATE can be formulated as below:
n { }
̂ =1
∑ adaptationi landproductivityi adaptationi − adaptation*i
ATE *
+ *
landproductivityei (8)
n i=1 adaptationi adaptationi

where landproductivityei is the expected value of farmer i’s land productivity assuming the farmer would have adapted to climate change

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conditional on given independent variables.

4. Results

4.1. Impact of social network on farmers’ adaptation and land productivity

The second column of Table 4 reports the estimated results of Equation (4). The coefficient of cooperative member is statistically
significant and positively associated with farmers’ adaptation to climate change, suggesting that farmers who participated in co­
operatives were more likely to take adaptation strategies in the production process. Agricultural cooperatives are officially registered
organizations in rural China. They usually consist of more than five local farmers and at least one leader skilled in agricultural
management or accessing market information. Cooperative members can formulate a formal social network that provides opportu­
nities for them to share knowledge of effective farming practices. Using these practices, banana farmers can increase their capabilities
of coping with climate change impacts. Neighboring farmers and agricultural input retailers are important roles in farmers’ informal
social network in rural China. Interestingly, farmers’ tie to local farmers and tie to retailers show a heterogeneous effect on farmers’
adaptation decisions.
On the one hand, the coefficient of tie to local farmers negatively influenced farmers’ adoption of strategies to combat climate
change, with significance at 5% level, indicating farmers who had close interactions with local smallholder farmers were less inclined
to take actions to adapt to climate change. Farmers possess limited knowledge for making decisions, thus the surrounding peers can be
an important “reference point” (Buchanan, 2020) for making decisions in production. The peer effect of social network on farmers’
adoption of agricultural innovations has been discussed in previous studies (Xiong et al., 2016). Nevertheless, the possible negative
effect of social ties has not been examined so far. If the surrounding smallholder farmers are mostly conservative and reluctant to invest
in any adaptation strategies, the farmer may follow their practices in agricultural production due to social pressure to some extent. The
case of Chinese banana farmers in this study supplies clear evidence to support this point. The closer link with local banana farmers
seems an obstacle for farmers to choose active actions to mitigate the impact of climate change.
On the other hand, the coefficient of tie to retailers shows a positive sign with statistical significance at 1% level, suggesting that the
more closely farmers interact with input retailers in their social network, the more likely they adopt adaptation measures. The field
research of our team shows that input retailers somewhat work as technicians in agricultural production in rural areas. First, they are
required to get a license from the local government to run the business. Second, they can provide corresponding guidance for farmers
when selling seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. These retailers tend to share effective practices with farmers in order to retain a good
relationship with them in the market. Thus, farmers may obtain more skills in dealing with issues originated from climate change
though frequent interactions with input retailers. The positive role of input retailers in increasing farmers’ resilience to climate change
deserves a highlight in the context of China’s agricultural production, because there are not enough agricultural technicians to provide
timely technical support for hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers.
Regarding farmers’ individual characteristics, sex and education have statistically significant impact on farmers’ adaptation to
climate change. The coefficient of sex is negative, indicating that female farmers have more tendencies to take adaptation strategies

Table 4
Regression results.
adaptation (1) adaptation (2) land productivity (3) land productivity (4)

adaptation 0.130** (0.065) 0.122** (0.061)

cooperative member 0.589***(0.207) 0.610*** (0.229) 0.178** (0.077) 0.214***(0.078)
tie to local farmers − 0.176* (0.096) − 0.252** (0.109) 0.162***(0.036) 0.056 (0.037)
tie to retailers 0.178** (0.071) 0.223*** (0.082) − 002 (0.027) 0.071** (0.028)
age 0.005 (0.014) − 0.011** (0.005)
sex − 0.480* (0.253) 0.136 (0.087)
minority 0.238 (0.250) − 0.155* (0.086)
education 0.086*** (0.032) − 0.004 (0.011)
farming experience 0.000 (0.012) 0.002 (0.004)
village cadre − 0.023 (0.229) − 0.124 (0.07)
health condition 0.140 (0.099) − 0.051 (0.034)
distance to bus center 0.001 (0.010) − 0.02*** (0.004)
family labor 0.092 (0.093) 0.07** (0.033)
land area 0.048 (0.076) − 0.03 (0.026)
land fertility − 0.284 (0.196) 0.132* (0.068)
off-farm work 0.309 (0.316) − 0.116 (0.106)
Hainan 0.170 (0.231) 0.019 (0.08)
Yunnan − 0.277 (0.300) − 0.453*** (0.103)
Guangdong — —
drought perception 0.545** (0.262)
Constant 0.430(0.421) − 0.713 (0.958) 7.046***(0.165) 8.103***(0.333)
R-squared 0.023 0.051 0.006 0.193
Chi-square 19.370*** 42.572***
F-test 7.520*** 7.807***

Notes: Standard errors are shown in parentheses. Asterisks *** indicate p < .01; ** indicate p < .05; and * indicates p < .10.

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Y. Zhu et al. Climate Risk Management 34 (2021) 100368

than male farmers in banana production. Existing evidence has shown there is gender difference of adoption decisions in coping with
climate change impacts (Ngigi et al., 2017). The coefficient of education shows a positive sign with significance at 1% level. Farmers
with more education can better understand climate change issue and have higher probability to take corresponding strategies. The
coefficient of drought perception is statistically significant with a positive sign, suggesting that farmers who can perceive the
occurrence of climate change are more likely to adopt strategies. Scholars have argued that individual perceptions are important for
mediating farmer responses to climate change (Singh et al., 2016). The results about the effect of social network on farmers’ adaptation
are consistent in column (1) of Table 4 where the control variables are not incorporated in the model.
The fourth column of Table 4 shows the estimated result of Equation (5). The coefficient of adaptation is statistically significant and
positively associated with land productivity of farmers. It suggests that adaptation strategies can increase the efficiency of land use by
banana farmers under climate change. The result also shows that both cooperative membership and tie to retailers positively influence
farmers’ land productivity, while the effect of tie to local farmers on land productivity is mute after incorporating control variables,
compared with the result in the column (3) of Table 4. If farmers participate in cooperative organizations or have close interactions
with input retailers, they can obtain more knowledge and skill of farming practices which may lead to more efficient use of land
resources. Thus, it seems that different ties in farmers’ social network show a consistent effect on their land productivity. However, it
will be discussed further after the self-selection bias is eliminated.
The land productivity of banana farmers is also varying from their different characteristics. Among the variables of individual
characteristics, both age and minority present a statistically significant impact on farmers’ land productivity. The younger farmers
produce more yield of banana than the older, while farmers from minorities have lower production performance than those from the
Han ethnic race that holds the biggest population in China. Minorities from the three provinces usually live in less developed areas
where the knowledge or technologies cannot be smoothly transmitted from other places. They are more vulnerable in response to the
impact of climate change and may inefficiently use land resources. With respect to household characteristics, distance to bus center
shows a statistically negative impact on land productivity. The closer to bus center farmer households are located, the higher pro­
ductivity of banana they have. Farmers can easily collect information and knowledge or access new technologies to facilitate agri­
cultural production if they are residing in a place near the market (Ojo and Baiyegunhi, 2020). The coefficient of family labor is
statistically significant with a positive sign, indicating that farmer households with more input of labor force in banana production
have higher land productivity. Land fertility reported by farmers presents a similar positive effect on land productivity according to the
estimated results. Farmers from different provinces did not show significant variance in adaptation behaviors, but the land produc­
tivity of banana farmers from Yunnan is significantly lower than that of other provinces. The land use in the mountainous region of
Yunnan is less efficient due to difficulties in the application of agricultural innovations (e.g. machinery) and shortage of water
resources.

4.2. Average treatment effect of farmers’ adaptation on land productivity

Table 5 reports the results of the treatment effect of farmers’ adaptation to climate change on their land productivity using the
AIPW estimator. The estimation of the effect of farmers’ adaptation in the column (4) of Table 4 could be incorrect if the self-selection
bias exists in the sample. In other words, the difference in land productivity of banana farmers may not result from their adaptation to
climate change, but their capabilities in other aspects which have not been considered in the previous regression model. The AIPW
estimator is used to resolve this endogeneity problem. The results show that the mean potential yield of farmers who did not use
adaptation strategies is 7.749 (natural logarithm form), and the average treatment effect of adaptation is statistically significant with a
positive sign. It suggests that farmer’ adaptation to climate change can improve the land productivity on an average level, considering
both observational and non-observational factors in the treatment effect model. The estimation confirms the analysis of the effect of
adaptation in the last section. Thus, it is believed that adaptation strategies can increase farmers’ resilience to climate change in
agricultural production.
The heterogeneous effect of social network on land productivity of farmers is also detected through the treatment effect estimation.
As shown in Table 4, the coefficient of tie to retailers is statistically significant and positively associated with land productivity of non-
adopters, indicating that non-adopters are more influenced by the tie to retailers than by other relations in their social network. The
closer interaction with input retailers can improve the land productivity of farmers who did not use any adaptation strategies. Re­
tailers, as one type of informal social ties, play a positive role for the group of non-adopters. In contrast, the coefficient of cooperative

Table 5
Treatment effect estimation results using AIPW estimator.
Variables Non-adopters Adopters

cooperative member 0.171 (0.139) 0.234*** (0.075)

tie to local farmers 0.044 (0.051) 0.057 (0.045)
tie to retailers 0.158*** (0.048) 0.017 (0.029)
Control# Yes Yes
Constant 7.876*** (0.509) 8.498*** (0.407)
ATE adaptation (1 VS 0) 0.121** (0.062)
POmean adaptation (0) 7.751*** (0.05)

Notes: # the control variables are included in the estimation model, but not given in the table. Standard errors
are shown in parentheses. *** indicate p < .01; ** indicate p < .05; and * indicates p < .10.

9
Y. Zhu et al. Climate Risk Management 34 (2021) 100368

member shows positive and statistically significant at 1% level for the group of adopters. The land productivity of farmers who took
strategies to adapt to climate change is more likely affected by their participations in agricultural cooperatives. As the tie in farmers’
formal social network, cooperative membership can help adopters better enhance land productivity. Therefore, the different ties in the
social network appear distinct impacts on land productivity of the two groups of banana farmers.
The IPWRA estimator is employed to check the robustness of Equation (8). As shown in Table 6, the estimated results present that
the average treatment effect of farmers’ adaptation is statistically significant with a positive sign. It is consistent with the results of
Table 4, indicating that the estimation based on Equation (8) is reliable.

5. Discussion

The study findings indicated that different social ties of farmers impose a heterogeneous effect on their adaptation decisions to
neutralize the impact of climate change. Social factors, e.g. social capital (Saptutyningsih et al., 2020), social distance (Shikuku, 2019)
or social learning (Nguyen et al., 2019), have received increasing concern in explaining farmers’ adoption of agricultural innovations
in recent years. In many developing regions, the less educated smallholder farmers are more dependent on the information and
knowledge shared in their social network when making decisions in agricultural production (Tripathi and Mishra, 2017; Shikuku,
2019; Yang et al., 2020). The present study specified two types of social network for farmers, namely the formal social network
represented by cooperative members, and the informal social network represented by the tie to local farmers and the tie to agricultural
input retailers. The empirical results provided a more elaborated perspective to understand the impact of different links in social
network on farmers’ adaptation to climate change. The tie to local farmers can act as a negative role for improving farmers’ resilience
under climatic shocks, while the tie to input retailers and cooperative membership helps farmers take adaptation strategies actively.
This study revealed that female farmers were statistically more inclined to adopt corresponding measures to mitigate the negative
impact of climate variability in the three provinces of China. The gender difference in response to climate change has also been
detected in other developing regions, such as South Africa (Thinda et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020), Vietnam (Trinh et al., 2018) and the
eastern Plateau of China (Wang et al., 2020). Female farmers are more sensitive for the loss caused by climate change and tend to take
actions for risk-aversion. Farmers’ education was important for them to understand the climate change effect and make adaptation
decisions in banana production. The evidence from other scholars also supports this point (Khanal et al., 2018; Esfandiari et al., 2020;
Khan et al., 2020). Thus, it requires more investment in the education of smallholder farmers to increase their resilience to climate
change (Ojo and Baiyegunhi, 2020).
The study described farmers’ adoption frequencies of eight adaptation measures, out of which, diversifying crops, increasing
chemical use and irrigation, and planting trees are top priorities in farmers’ choices. These strategies have been discussed in existing
literature (Esfandiari et al., 2020; Fahad et al., 2020; Khan et al., 2020). The effect of social network on the four adaptation strategies is
presented in Table 7. Farmers’ participation in cooperative can encourage them to diversify their crops to mitigate the impact of
climate change but discourage planting trees that requires a longer time to effect in combating climate change. Regarding the informal
social network, tie to retailers increased farmers’ tendency to take the measures of crop diversification and increasing chemical use in
banana production, while tie to local farmers hindered farmers from using these strategies. Retailers have the economic incentive to
share effective knowledge for reducing the negative effect of climate variability. However, they are more likely suggesting farmers to
use the strategies that can lead to more sales of their shops. For example, more chemical input in agriculture may effectively reduce
pests and shorten the vegetative period of crops to avoid the exposure to climate change, but it is not sustainable and environment-
friendly if overuse of chemicals happens in banana production. Thus, the effect of tie to retailers on farmers’ adaptation to climate
change requires a cautious evaluation.
Both cooperative membership and tie to retailers were positively correlated with land productivity of banana farmers. The average
treatment effect of cooperative member and tie to retailers on land productivity is also calculated separately using AIPW estimator
(Table 8). The results convince us that the two kinds of social network can significantly increase the land productivity of farmers.
However, the social network appeared heterogeneous effect for the two groups of farmers (adopters and non-adopters). The results of
AIPW estimation based on separate groups posed that adopters were significantly affected by cooperative members and non-adopters
were more likely influenced by the tie to retailers in terms of land productivity (Table 4). It implies that the roles of different re­
lationships in social network should be distinguished when analyzing the land productivity of the control and treatment groups.
The study also underscored the importance of adaptation strategies on land productivity of farmers in rural China. The empirical
evidence presented that farmers who actively take adaptation strategies to reduce the impact of climate change had higher production
performance of land use. The estimation results were consistent when using the IPWRA method. The positive correlation between
adaptation measures and crop productivity of farmers is also supported by the previous studies (Abid et al., 2016; Khanal et al., 2018).
Besides, land productivity was also determined by farmers’ characteristics and household resources, such as age, race (minority), labor
force, and land fertility. The location factor may influence farmers’ access to market (Ojo and Baiyegunhi, 2020), and those living near

Table 6
Robustness check using IPWRA estimator.
land productivity Coef. Std. Err. t-value

ATE adaptation (1 VS 0) 0.123** 0.061 2.01

POmean adaptation (0) 7.749*** 0.05 155.94

Notes: *** indicate p < .01; ** indicate p < .05; and * indicates p < .10.

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Y. Zhu et al. Climate Risk Management 34 (2021) 100368

Table 7
Effect of social network on different adaptation strategies.
diversify crops increase chemical use increase irrigation plant trees

cooperative member 0.37**(0.148) 0.012(0.158) 0.26(0.171) − 0.321*(0.183)

tie to local farmers − 0.135*(0.072) − 0.168**(0.07) − 0.237***(0.08) − 0.086(0.089)
tie to retailers 0.184***(0.052) 0.167***(0.053) 0.066(0.061) − 0.053(0.067)
Control Yes Yes Yes Yes
Constant − 1.009(0.643) − 1.366**(0.646) − 0.721(0.72) − 1.107(0.775)
Pseudo r-squared 0.070 0.065 0.074 0.091
Chi-square 46.931*** 42.989*** 35.894*** 40.609***

Notes: *** indicate p < .01; ** indicate p < .05; and * indicates p < .10.

Table 8
ATE of cooperative member and tie to retailers on land productivity.
Coef. Std. Err. t-value

ATE of cooperative member (1 vs 0) 0.463* 0.27 1.72

POmean cooperative member (0) 7.779*** 0.036 215.18
ATE of tie to retailers
(2 vs 1) 0.326*** 0.101 3.24
(3 vs 1) 0.258*** 0.091 2.85
(4 vs 1) 0.302* 0.162 1.86
(5 vs 1) 0.348** 0.148 2.35
POmean tie to retailers (1) 7.632*** 0.072 106.25

Notes: *** indicate p < .01; ** indicate p < .05; and * indicates p < .10.

the bus center can easily obtain the technical support for improving land productivity. Compared with other provinces, Yunnan
presented a significant vulnerability in banana production, due to the limited resources in the mountainous region and the low
adjustment capability of smallholder farmers under climate change.

6. Conclusions

Smallholder farmers in developing regions are vulnerable in agricultural production under climate change due to limited
knowledge regarding adaptation strategies. In recent years, the extreme weather events under warming climate threaten the sus­
tainable development of agriculture in Southern China (Lei et al., 2016). Based on the primary data collected from banana farmers in
main producing areas of China, this study reports the different adaptation strategies used by farmers to mitigate the impact of climate
change in the three provinces, and contributes to the existing literature by exploring the heterogeneous effect of social network on
farmers’ adaptation decisions and land productivity. The AIPW estimation is used to test the robustness of the impact of adaptation to
climate change on land productivity of farmers and differentiate the roles of distinct social ties on the land productivity of adopters and
non-adopters.
The results reveal that 45 percent of banana farmers have not taken any adaptation strategies for coping with climate change in
Southern China. Diversifying crops, increasing chemical use, increasing irrigation, and planting trees are the most frequently used
adaptation strategies among banana farmers. Compared with other two provinces, farmers from Yunnan are slightly less active in the
adoption of corresponding measures. For each adaptation strategy, cooperative member, tie to local farmers, and tie to agricultural
input retailers posed different effects on farmers’ uptake decisions. The findings of the study suggest that farmer’s adaptation decisions
were significantly determined by different social ties in their social network. Cooperative members and tie to input retailers increased
farmers’ adoption rate of adaptation strategies, while tie to local smallholder farmers hindered farmers’ responses to climate change.
Adaptation to climate change is found to significantly improve the land productivity of banana farmers in Southern China, and the
result is robust according to the estimation using AIPW and IPWRA estimators. However, the land productivity of adopters was more
affected positively by cooperative members, while agricultural input retailers helped non-adopters improve the production perfor­
mance of their farmland.
Several important implications can be drawn from the present study. First, policymakers and stakeholders should give more
attention to the mountainous area, such as Yunnan, to increase farmer’s responses to changing climate in agricultural production.
Extension workers may organize knowledge sharing activities to help farmers in marginal areas to understand the impact of changing
climate and improve their awareness of adaptation practices to deal with related issues (de Sousa et al., 2018; Fahad et al., 2020).
Second, the ties with positive effect in farmers’ social networks, such as cooperative organizations and input retailers, can be used to
disseminate correct information and knowledge of adaptation to climate change. The possible negative effect brought by smallholder
farmers in social networks should be reduced in promoting adaptation strategies among farmers in these areas. Third, more feasible
and economic measures are expected for smallholder farmers to strengthen their resilience to climate variability and increase the land
productivity. The design and implementation of measures and policy tools for addressing climate change can be based on farmer
typologies (Orduño Torres et al., 2020).

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Y. Zhu et al. Climate Risk Management 34 (2021) 100368

These findings can be cautiously extended to a broader context, considering that distinct culture and norms of interactions among
farmers may shape the different structure of farmers’ social networks in developing regions. Over these social networks, the impor­
tance of different social tie for farmers may vary from country to country. Thus, further research in different scenarios can be con­
ducted by incorporating other appropriate social ties which may affect farmers’ adaptation decisions and land productivity, for
example, the contact with middlemen in the market. It was not taken into account in the present study because banana growers do not
have a stable relationship with middlemen due to high mobility of this profession in the market, according to our field research.
Another possible misunderstanding about the findings is that the interaction with local farmers may not always impose a negative
effect on farmers’ uptake of adaptation strategies in all cases of developing regions. When most local smallholder farmers acquire
sufficient knowledge and skills about adaptation strategies for neutralizing climate change impacts, they may positively influence
other farmers in adapting to climate change in agricultural production.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71863006), Hainan Provincial Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 720RC581), China Agriculture Research System of MOF and MARA (No. CARS-31-14), and the
Research of the Youth Fund for Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education (No. 20YJC790197).

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