IMPACTS OF CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT CHANGES ON AGRICULTURAL LIVELIHOODS AND INCOME FROM AGRICULTURE OF RURAL HOUSEHOLDS IN THE MEKONG DELTA Case Studies in Ben Tre and Soc Trang Provinces

Abstract

Based on the survey of 195 agricultural households in Ben Tre and Soc Trang provinces in 2022, the paper provides evidence on the impacts of climate and environment changes on agricultural livelihoods and income from agriculture of households. Principal component analysis and ordinal logistic regression model were used to identify the factors of climate and environment changes and calculate the probability of loss in agricultural income of households affected by the above factors. Our results show that the deviations from the common cycles of weather - climate and thunderstorms/cyclones/storms; hot and dry atmosphere; saltwater intrusion, surface water pollution and reduced diversity of endemic aquatic species were the factors that had the most negative changes. At the same time, these were also the factors that had the most negative impact on the income of agricultural livelihoods. In particular, fishing and aquaculture had a higher probability of loss than farming.