Farmers’ beliefs and concerns about climate change, and their adaptation behavior to combat climate change in Saudi Arabia

farming experience, farm size, level of education, nature of cultivation, extent of extension ser- vices received, farm ownership, cooperative agricultural membership, access to loans, and level of soil fertility in their farms. The second part comprised of the questions related to farmers’ beliefs about climate change and their sources of information regarding climate change. The beliefs of the farmers were measured on a five-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Dis- agree; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly Agree). The question statements were adopted and modified accordingly based on a previous study conducted by Arbuckle et al. [40]. The third part of the instrument included questions related to farmers’ observation about changes in rainfall, temperature, and crop productivity over the last 15 years. This section also contained questions related to farmers’ concerns about potential problems due to climate change on their agricultural farms. There were eight Likert-type questions measured on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = Not Concerned; 2 = Slightly Concerned; 3 = Concerned; 4 = Very Concerned). The last part of the questionnaire included questions related to obstacles that farmers face in their adaptation efforts to climate change. There were eight questions measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly Agree). 2.4. Data analysis A range of both descriptive and inferential statistical tools were employed to analyze the col-

lected data. The variable of annual farm income was deleted as about half of the farmers did not disclose their annual agricultural income. Farmers’ beliefs about climate change, their con- cerns about potential problems, and their views on adaptation obstacles were measured using a set of Likert scale questions. These variables were summed using related statements and three new variables were created based on the individual average scores of the farmers; the computed variables were treated as interval variables for running non-parametric analysis. To find differences in farmers’ beliefs regarding climate change, their concerns about impacts of climate change, and their views towards various adaptation obstacles due to demographic fac- tors and some other selected variables, non-parametric tests were used. For the variables of membership of agricultural cooperatives, access to extension services, access to agricultural loans, and communication with other farmers about climate change, Mann Whitney U test (also known as Mann Whitney Wilcoxon test) was performed. On the other hand, for the vari- ables of age, level of education, farming experience, farm size, farm ownership, soil fertility level, Kruskal-Wallis test (a non-parametric alternative of One-Way ANOVA) was used. Sta- tistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 27.0v IBM) was used for the entire data analysis. Fig 2 provides an overall view of the methodological framework. 3. Results 3.1. Demographic characteristics of the farmers

Table 1 depicts the demographic characteristics of the farmers. About half of the farmers (51%) were above 50 years of age. Around 49% of the farmers were having at least bachelor or higher level of education; 35% had high school or below than it. About 49% had less than 20 years of farming experience; 51% of them had 20 years or more farming experience. The farm size of around 62% of the farmers was up to 4 hectares or below5; around 38% of the farmers had farms of more than 4 hectares in size. Nearly two-thirds of the farmers (65%) were the owners of their farms; 19% of them run their farms on rent whereas around 16% of them had shared farmland. Most of the farmers (71%) cultivated other crops in addition to fruits and vegetables on their lands. The perceived level of soil fertility at most of the farms (70%) was reported as average; only 16% reported high soil level of soil fertility at their farms. Majority of PLOS ONE Adaptation of climate change among farmers PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280838 January 25, 2023 5 / 20