FARMERS ATTITUDES TOWARDS ADAPTING CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH SOIL TESTING

The Pacific Islands including Fiji are the most vulnerable to climate change due to its geographical remoteness and size. Therefore, sustainable crop production and land management practices become very important. Soil testing is a comprehensive soil fertility evaluation tool, which helps the farmers to apply chemical fertilizers judiciously. This enables farmers to know how much nutrients are already available in the soil and how much to be provided additionally for a particular crop. Therefore, a study was conducted in the Nalaoto and Wailotua districts of Tailevu Province, Fiji to find out the knowledge of farmers toward soil testing practice and attitude of farmers towards soil testing practices. The research instrument was a structural questionnaire with close ended questions which confirmed its validity and reliability. The target population included all farmers. There was a significant difference between the personal, farming and educational characteristics of adopters and non-adopters of soil testing. Study concluded that farmers, however, have knowledge of soil testing and its importance towards sustainable crop production and land management practices, but the encouragement and attentiveness is still needed to change their attitude towards soil testing especially of those who were disagreed with most of the attitude statements. More importantly need is to inspire farmers for soil testing practices by organizing training programmes on importance of soil testing, soil fertility management for sustainable crop production, soil test and soil health campaigns with special attention to soil testing as a tool