As climate change intensifies, small farmers are on the frontline of its effects. In recent months, extreme droughts in the Amazon and record floods in Southern Brazil have made global headlines, highlighting the urgent need to understand how vulnerable agricultural communities respond to worsening climate risks. A new study published in the Strategic Management Journal suggests that their responses depend on how severely they are impacted by climate change and whether they have resources to cope.
“Large and medium-sized organizations in high-income countries often continue business as usual, likely because they have lower chances of facing immediate climate risks and abundant resources. In contrast, small organizations in middle and low-income countries are heavily exposed to climate change effects and have limited resources to cope, increasing their vulnerability. So, they must either spend their limited resources on adaptive strategies like planting trees, which tighten finances in short-term but help in the long-run, or choose maladaptive strategies like cutting trees for livestock farming, which bring quick income but intensify problems like soil erosion in the future,” explains Lucrezia Nava, the lead author of the study and an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Business Management at the University of Exeter Business School. “Yet, most studies have focused on high-income countries, which has limited our understanding of how decision-makers in vulnerable contexts respond to climate change.”
To address this gap, Nava, along with co-authors Jorge Chiapetti and Rui Barbosa da Rocha of Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz and Maja Tampe of Universitat Ramon Llull, investigated small cocoa producers in Southern Bahia, Brazil, who faced both droughts and an economic crisis. Between 2015 and 2019, they surveyed 3,091 producers across four rounds and conducted interviews with 38 producers and six cocoa experts in 2019.
They found that experiencing climate change was linked to lower chances of implementing adaptive responses, as producers affected by droughts lost around 3% more of their farm forest each year compared to those unaffected. “When producers constantly face climate challenges beyond their control, they become hopeless and believe any attempt to adapt will be pointless, ultimately reducing their adaptive responses,” explains Chiapetti, a Professor of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Moreover, producers with more experience of climate events were more likely to view them as disastrous—pushing them toward maladaptive strategies. “Producers fear that climate change will worsen, and often choose immediate relief solutions, like shifting from cocoa to livestock farming, over long-term sustainability, since such maladaptive responses can temporarily reduce their fears,” highlights da Rocha, a Professor of Regional Geography.
However, these patterns create ‘climate traps,’ where maladaptive responses further harm the ecosystem and increase producers’ vulnerability to climate change. This further affects them economically and reduces their ability to adapt and escape the trap.
“Overall, these findings could guide decision-making in global supply chains, help policymakers create interventions that address the psychological barriers to adaptation, and support small organizations in vulnerable contexts effectively,” concludes Tampe, an Associate Professor in the Department of Society, Politics and Sustainability.
