Piloting a tool to assess climate change vulnerability among cocoa producers. The case of Jembrana, Bali, Indonesia

To data collection phase of the pilot followed a three-step process:

Training
Firstly, a consultant has been trained on using and interpreting the tool. The training has taken place online during the last week of October 2020. Afterwards, the consultant has gathered with six locally hired enumerators to train them on administering the questionnaire. During this phase, both the consultant and the enumerators have provided feedback on the tool, which has been adjusted accordingly in order to avoid potential issues during the data collection phase.

Administration of questionnaires
The questionnaires have been administered by the consultant and enumerators who travelled to the involved farms and individually interviewed the producers. This phase has taken place from November 2nd to 13th, 2020. After filling out the questionnaires, these have been scanned and sent to the Rainforest Alliance’s Amsterdam-based team, who has inputted them in the Excel-based tool and thereafter analyzed the data. Afterwards, 32 individual farm profiles have been created, based on the results, and shared with the respondents.

Focus Group Discussions (FGDs)
Besides the questionnaire, an additional method has been used in our analysis: two Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) have been conducted, during which the main climate-change related impacts, issues and potential adaptation measures have been explored by farmers, with the help of external facilitators. The first one took place on November 9th and the second one, at the end of the data collection phase, on November 14th, 2020. Both were hosted in the office of the partner organization Kalimajari in Denpasar, Bali. As age is one of the variables used in analyzing the data collected, the focus groups were separated between younger and older farmers to consider the different levels of vulnerability and resilience between the two groups. Pictures taken during the administration of questionnaires and focus groups are available in the appendix at the end of this document.

The purposes of the two FGDs were to:
1. Get a clearer view of farmers’ main climate change-related issues;
2. Explore the solutions they have already adopted, their success rate and what obstacles they have encountered in implementing them;
3. Propose adaptive measures, which have emerged from the above-described tool, and discuss their implementation;
4. Collect feedback on the tool’s usability, comprehensibility, simplicity, and effectiveness in suggesting adaptive measures.

The first FGD was split into three activities and structured to complement the household survey. The first activity sought to look at farmers’ perceptions of climate change impacts, and the problems they faced in addressing these impacts. The second activity focused on how these problems could best be addressed, and through which organization or institution these solutions could be made possible. Lastly, the third activity focused on ranking qualities of the CSA approach, based on the cost-benefit analysis, and their preferences of adoption in a context with credit and equipment constraints.
During the second FGD, the 32 individual farm results and suggested practices were shared with the respondents. On that occasion, the results were discussed with farmers to understand more about their point of view on those measures, how to implement them and the main obstacles they would face. Their feedback has thus been collected in order to improve the tool.
The groups were facilitated by the external consultant in collaboration with experts from the Rainforest Alliance’s Indonesian partner BITRA (Indonesia Foundation for Rural Capacity Building), whose members have extensive knowledge in climate change adaptation and had previously conducted research under the Sector Partnership program. The FGDs were conducted in Bahasa Indonesia and Balinese dialect. Afterwards, the information collected was translated to English by the consultant.

Limitations
The pilot implementation has undergone a series of challenges which have hindered the full realization of its goals. Here is a list of the main issues encountered:
• Time and financial constraints: the pilot was conducted in October-November 2020. Due to the temporary constraints of its funding program (the Rainforest Alliance’s Sector Partnerships program), it was not possible to extend the project later than November. This restricted the number of respondents which, from an initial aim of 50, was decreased to 32.
• Covid-19 emergency: as it was not possible to organize any gatherings of many people, we had to involve less respondents than planned in the Focus Group Discussions.
• Data quality: it has not always been possible to control data quality in the pilot, as many actors were involved in the pilot, with the only communication method being virtual calls and meetings.
• We could not explore a potentially additional objective, which was the Excel tool’s usability on electronic devices such as tablets, smartphones, and laptops. This was because of a lack of financial resources to provide our enumerators with those devices and bring them to farmers. Instead of them, we employed a printed-out questionnaire based on the Excel tool.