Agriculture & Food, Volume 6, 2018

Abstract: Climatic influences have had effects on agricultural production for ancient ages. The mankind has always tried to adapt to the rapidly changing and sometimes hectic effects of weather which has very huge and important effect on the quality and quantity of production. Today, climate change impacts are one of the most serious problems for Hungarian fruit growers. The year of 2007 was a particularly difficult time for Hungarian fruit growers, especially in North Great Plan region. Serious and repeated frosts occurred at blooming time in this region, which caused almost 100% of fruit loss. Frost caused an “off-year” in the orchards. The purposes of our research were to study the effects of irregular frost on nutritional status and enrich farmers’ knowledge to understand the risks and consequences of climate change. Nutritional investigations pointed out that the crop loss puts at risk the current season’s fruit, and also because of the perennial nature of fruits, it influences the productivity of fruits for several seasons in the future. The concrete nutritional test results have made the producers aware that in future they will be successful if their knowledge is improved. Enriching farmers’ knowledge and understanding of the risks and consequences of climate change is the most promising strategy to better assist them. Regarding protection against extreme weather events, in addition to technological and technical elements, the level of importance assumed by family farmers for the above-mentioned protection techniques are also worth of studying. This ongoing research beginning in 2009 mainly focuses on studying the opinions of fruit growers making up the target group for this analysis. The questionnaire survey primarily intends to study their knowledge on the definition of climate change as reactivity to unfavourable weather events occurring in the growing.