Determinants of oil palm smallholder farmers’ adaptation strategy to climate change in Bengkulu, Indonesia

Bengkulu is one of 10 provinces in Indonesia, which became a center of oil palm production. The aim of the study is to define how the determinant factors influence the oil palm smallholder farmer’s adaptation strategies on climate change in Bengkulu Province, Indonesia. Binary logistic regression method was employed to clarify the independent variables that influence farmers’ strategy adapted to climate change. Farmer experience and their household expenditure have the positive and significant effect on cropping diversification, while oil palm price has a positive influence in using land clearing without slash and burning. The factors that most influence the farmers’ adaptation to climate change are farmer’s cooperation membership and membership of farmer group for agricultural extension. Because of their education and experience, they are not an important determinant on strategies adapted to climate change, but the farmer’s group for agricultural extension was very important in the adoption of comprehensive adaptation strategies to climate change, thus the understanding and skill of implementing strategies adapted to climate change among smallholder farmers needs improving by government extension agency. Therefore, ensuring access to information on climate change through extension agents is believed to create awareness and favorable conditions to adopt farming practices suited to climate change. It also means that improving the knowledge and skills of extension service personnel about climate change and adaptation strategies, and making the extension services more accessible to farmers is strongly recommended. For future work, new research involving more area with diversified ownership can be performed, not only smallholder farmer ownership but also private and state corporation ones. Moreover, the study about government action and policy for accelerating farmer’s adaptation is important to be executed in the future.