<p>Climate change seriously threatens agriculture in climate-sensitive areas that completely rely on rainfall, irrigation access, and local ecological conditions. Semi-arid climate, irregular rainfall, droughts, flash floods, and rising temperatures make Chittur Taluk in Palakkad district, Kerala, a susceptible agricultural region. Despite extensive research on climate change’s effects on agriculture, literatures on Chittur farmers’ opinions and adaption plans are scarce. This study examines farmers’ perceptions of climate change and identifies the factors determining adaptation strategies for sustainable agriculture. A mixed-method participatory strategy was used by conducting questionnaire surveys and focus group talks with 400 agricultural households throughout 16 Panchayaths from June 2023 to April 2024. The variables used were 52 in number and relate to socio-economic status, agricultural practices, perception of climate change, barriers to adaptation and access to information. Multivariate factor analysis and spatial mapping were used for identifying significant characteristics of climate effect and adaptive capacity. The results indicate a high level of awareness of climate change among farmers with main worries on increasing hot days, rainfall variability, drought, degrading soil conditions, pest incidence, financial losses and crop failures. Five key dimensions were derived using factor analysis. The first two components accounted for 34.42% of the total variance while the twelve components recovered accounted for 96.880%. In the composite index, Eruthempathy, Nallepilly and Nenmmara had greater climate-related stress, whereas Vadakarapathy and Vadavannur had lesser. The findings indicate the need for climate-smart farming, crop diversification, access to accurate weather forecasts, farmer training, and Panchayat-level adaptation plans.</p>