Adaptation to climate change of Italian agricultural systems: the role of adaptive governance and social learning

Agriculture sustainability in the changing climate world is a difficult issue for both research and policy communities. While scientists are still struggled with CC knowledge uncertainties. Policy makers are stuck in understanding CC impacts in order to develop and implement policies to ensure an optimal level of adaptation. Several questions emerged in this context for policy makers are who and what adapts, what they adapt to and which levels they need to adapt. Through an empirical study at Oristano (Italy) with the 4 representative Italian agricultural systems, this research aimed to examine the local farmers’ adaptation capacity in the context of climate uncertainty. The research was designed flexibly in 4 phases as guided by the Grounded Theory Methodology. Participatory and bottom-up approach adopting methods such as interviews or questionnaires, meetings and workshops developed during the 3 years to trigger the interactions with/among stakeholders, engage their participation and open new space for social learning occurrence. The results provided an insight understanding about farmers’ perceptions, their knowledge, attitude and practices in coping with climate uncertainties, and importantly scenarios of adaptation to CC of Italian agricultural systems. It also highlighted several theoretical frameworks, that have significant implications for research and policy, on emerging social learning processes and forming local adaptive governance for CC adaptation at local levels.