Adapting rural communities to climate change: The undervalued potential of agricultural land

Abstract

Rural municipalities in the Czech Republic (central Europe) are important owners of agricultural land, which, if managed appropriately, can be a means of reducing the local impacts of climate change. Previous research has not paid enough attention to rural municipal approaches to farmland management and their role in addressing local climate impacts. The aim of this paper is thus to capture the possible approaches and roles of municipalities in reducing the local impacts of climate change and to show how municipalities, as significant landowners, respond to these impacts. The research is based on semistructured interviews with representatives of rural municipalities and these results are further triangulated through focus groups with farmers in three model areas with different climatic and natural conditions for agriculture. The results showed that rural community leaders are generally unwilling to farm their agricultural land. They mostly lease land to farmers but at the same time do not understand the potential of tenancy agreements to influence farming to mitigate the impacts of climate change locally. Although the communities do not have a systematic and strategic approach to climate adaptation measures, the findings showed the implementation of a range of activities that effectively respond to climate change. Finally, the potential for strengthening governance and consequently rural sustainability lies in systematic counselling to leaders and communities and institutional support.