Adaptation or Resistance: How Trust in Public Environmental Agencies Influences Farmers’ Climate Change Responses

Climate change poses increasing challenges to agricultural systems in Mediterrane-an-type regions, where climate variability, ecosystem degradation, and governance constraints interact to shape farmers’ management decisions. Understanding how in-stitutional and social factors influence adaptive responses is therefore critical. This study examines how institutional trust and local perceptions of climate change impacts shape farmers’ willingness to adopt adaptation practices in the vulnerable district of Alhué, central Chile. A structured questionnaire was administered to small farmers to assess willingness to adopt climate change adaptation practices and trust in public environ-mental agencies. Multivariate models revealed a non-linear, U-shaped relationship between trust in agencies and willingness to adopt adaptive practices: willingness was lowest at intermediate levels of trust and higher among farmers reporting either low or high trust in environmental agencies. This pattern remained robust after controlling for socioeconomic and perceptual factors. These findings suggest that both skepticism and strong institutional confidence may motivate adaptive behavior through different mechanisms, highlighting the need for governance approaches that acknowledge het-erogeneous trust dynamics. Overall, the results underscore the importance of socially legitimate and context-sensitive institutional arrangements for fostering climate change adaptation in vulnerable rural territories.