Understanding farmers' awareness of Climate Services: knowledge, practice, and attitude towards weather information in Benin, West Africa

This study explored farmers' knowledge, practice, and attitude towards Climate Services (weather information) in the West African state of Benin. Primary data were collected randomly from 540 smallholder farm households across five municipal areas. Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) models were employed to analyze the socio-economic factors that explain the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) scores. The empirical results suggest that most farmers are unaware of Climate Services (CS) but show positive attitude and willingness to adopt them. The average KAP scores are 4.13 (+/- 3.77) against a maximum of 10; 7.20 (+/- 3.64) against a maximum of 14; and 2.78 (+/- 3.50) against a maximum of 16 for Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice respectively. Socio-economic factors such as level of education, gender, household size, membership in an organization, and access to credit have different effects that policymakers should consider to improve farmers' KAP towards the adoption of Climate Services.