Household survey of climate change perception and adaptation strategies of smallholder coffee and basic grain farmers in Central America 2004-2014

The data archived here were collected as part of a household survey of smallholder coffee and basic farmers’ perceptions and adaptations to climate change. The data includes information from 860 smallholder coffee and maize/bean farmers in Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica. The main objective of the household survey was to explore how smallholder farmers are being affected by climate change and whether (and how) they are adapting their farm management strategies in response to climate change. The specific objectives of the household survey were: (1) To document smallholder farmer perceptions of whether (and how) the climate has changed over the past decade and to document the perceived impacts of climate change household livelihoods and production systems. (2) To characterise whether and how smallholder farmers have changed their farm management practices in response to climate change (with a special emphasis on the use of Ecosystem-based Adaptation practices). (3) To understand the reasons why agricultural households implemented particular adaptation practices and identify barriers to the use of different adaptation practices. (4) To explore the role of organisations and institutions in promoting the use of Ecosystem-based Adaptation practices; and (5) To identify opportunities for the use of EbA practices to help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change. In addition to collecting information related to the five objectives outlined above, the survey also collected basic information on smallholder farmer household demographics, socioeconomic conditions, livelihood strategies, farm and crop characteristics, and farm management strategies. The EbA practices documented in the study included the use of shade and manual weeding in coffee plots, the use of dispersed trees, mulching, fallows and minimum tillage in maize or bean fields, the use of live fences, home gardens, contour planting, windbreaks and cover crops, and the conservation of riparian forests and forest patches. In addition, we collected information on why farmers did- or did not- use certain EbA practices, the year in which they began to use individual EbA practices, and any changes they had made in these practices over the last 10 years. All surveys were conducted in person with the head of the household (in Spanish). Surveys were conducted in the field between April and September 2014. The archived dataset ‘Household survey of climate change perception and adaptation strategies of smallholder coffee and basic grain farmers in Central America’ was collected as part of the CASCADE project (Ecosystem‐based Adaptation for Smallholder Coffee and Subsistence Farmers in Central America). The CASCADE project was an interdisciplinary research project led by Conservation International and the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), implemented in coordination with CIRAD, and funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) from the German Government. The overall goal of the CASCADE project was to help vulnerable smallholder farming communities adapt to climate change by identifying and testing Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) strategies that can help farmers and building local capacity to support the implementation of these strategies in smallholder farming communities. The project was developed from 2012 to 2017 in three Central American countries (Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala) and focused on subsistence farmers (cultivating maize and beans) and smallholder coffee farmers. Activities were conducted at regional and national scales, and in six individual landscapes (Turrialba and Los Santos in Costa Rica, Chiquimula and Acatenango in Guatemala, and Choluteca and Yoro in Honduras). The data archived here were collected as part of a household survey of smallholder coffee and basic farmers’ perceptions and adaptations to climate change. The data includes information from 860 smallholder coffee and maize/bean farmers in Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica.