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How to encourage farmers to adapt to climate change ? AMARNATH TRIPATHI INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH, DELHI, INDIA [email protected]
How to encourage farmers to adapt to climate change ?
AMARNATH TRIPATHI
INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH, DELHI , INDIA
Organization
Background, motivation & objectives
Study area, methods & data
Results & discussions
Conclusions & policy implications
Background, motivation & objectives
Study area, methods & data
Results & discussions
Conclusions & policy implications
Addressing climate change has now become essential
Provisioning of food and raw materials is the major assignment of agriculture, which is under great threat of climate change.
Climate change is no more distant future problem.
Two-way relationship between climate change and agriculture
Adapting agriculture: A solution but very challenging particularly in developing countries
Low adaptive capacity 80 per cent farmers are small & marginal farmers
Credit & other constraints
Autonomous adaptation – cannot expect and if, it wouldn’t be sufficient to offset losses from climate change.
Policy driven adaptation is urgently required.
Adaptation: A two-step process
Perceiving climate change and its associated risks. Perceiving is a cognitive process which involves receiving sensory information and interpreting these information based knowledge and experience.
Accuracy of perception depends on how we interpret received information and it depends on our knowledge and experience.
Responding to these changes to minimize their adverse impacts.
Objectives
To formulate recommendation on how to scale-up adaption to Climate change (CC).
To understand farmer’s perception of both CC and its associated risks and what factors can help in forming perception accurately.
To identify changes in technology and practice that farmers take to mitigate losses from CC and assess if CC drives observed changes by farmers.
Study areaEastern Uttar Pradesh
Three villages (Sariyawa, Gauhaniya& Kinauli) from Faizabad district.
Sariyawa & Gauhaniya from Masodhablock & Kinauli from Milkipur block.
Masodha, close to city and relatively developed in infrastructure and other services.
Features of chosen villages All three villages are less developed – Sariyawa, relatively more developed than other two villages.
Sariyawa, dominated by an upper cast ‘Kshatriya’ & major occupation is agriculture and service.
Gauhaniya, dominated by an upper backward cast ‘kurmi’ & major occupation is agriculture & allied activities.
Kinauli, least developed & dominated by an upper cast ‘kayasth’ – they have either migrated or moved to city & shared-out/rented-out their agriculture land. Farmers are mostly tenants.
Data & methodsFocus Groups Discussion (FGDs) method - Five groups of farmers & each group has nine farmers (Two groups in each Sariyawa and Gauhaniya and one group in Kinauli).
Inclusion criteria – 20 or more years of farming experience.
Information obtained from FGDs are later check for validation by agriculture and climate data collected from secondary sources.
Secondary data are analysed using trend analysis.
Perception of climate change & its impact Groups farmers perceived changes in warming trend, rainfall & weather and their impact on agriculture production and livelihood strategies.
Two interesting features were noted.
◦ Farmers perceived changes in climatic parameters, but were unaware that these changes were known as ‘Climate Change (CC)’.
◦ Disagreement over increasing warming trend.
Print media is found helpful in spreading awareness and forming correct perception of CC.
Validation of Farmer’s perception using observed climate data
Maximum and minimum temperature anomalies in Faizabad district for the period begin 1901
Maximum and minimum temperature anomalies in Faizabad district for the period begin 1970
max = 0.004t - 0.215
min = 0.005t - 0.233-1.5
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
19
01
19
05
19
09
19
13
19
17
19
21
19
25
19
29
19
33
19
37
19
41
19
45
19
49
19
53
19
57
19
61
19
65
19
69
19
73
19
77
19
81
19
85
19
89
19
93
19
97
20
01
MAX MIN Linear (MAX) Linear (MIN)
max = 0.022t - 0.291
min= 0.034t - 0.452
-1.5
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
MAX MIN Linear (MAX) Linear (MIN)
Rainfall anomalies in Faizabad district during the period begins 1901
rain = -1.406t + 76.27
-800
-600
-400
-200
0
200
400
600
800
19
01
19
04
19
07
19
10
19
13
19
16
19
19
19
22
19
25
19
28
19
31
19
34
19
37
19
40
19
43
19
46
19
49
19
52
19
55
19
58
19
61
19
64
19
67
19
70
19
73
19
76
19
79
19
82
19
85
19
88
19
91
19
94
19
97
20
00
20
03
20
06
20
09
Rainfall Linear (Rainfall)
Observed changes in Farming practices & rural livelihoods in study villages
S. No. Observed Changes
Farming Practices Livelihood Strategies
1 Increased use of groundwater for irrigation Self-employed businesses (Provision store, Mobile & its repair shop, etc.)
2 Use of PVC pipes to carry water to farms
3 Changed timing of sowing & harvesting
4 Use of high yield varieties for crops Salaried employment (Government service, salesmen, security gaurdsetc.)
5 Use of short-duration cultivars
6 Mixed cropping (inter-cropping)
7 Crop diversification Out-migration
8 Agro-forestry
Is climate change the main driver of these changes?
Case 1: Crop Diversification Farmers particularly from Sariyawa and Gohaniya villages are gradually shifting towards cultivation of peppermint from sugarcane.
Peppermint is more profitable crop than sugarcane.
There is no marketing problems with peppermint.
Sugarcane has lot of marketing problems. For example, famers may be forced to sell their produce to these influential people at very low prices.
Case 2: Agro-forestrySome farmers are found in these villages who begun planting trees particularly mango and eucalyptus on their farms in order to generate more income rather than reduce negative impact of climate change.
Even farmers are well known of hydrological consequence of eucalyptus that it lowers water level very rapidly because of high rate of transpiration.
Farmers mentioned that they do not bother it because of their prime concern of profit that they get from selling its wood.
Case 3: Increased use of groundwater for irrigation Most of interviewed farmers have installed their own tube-well for irrigation purpose.
This practice has significantly reduces their dependency on rainfall and helped them to minimize the adverse effect of drought or lack of rainfall.
But, the way they irrigate their farms is not appropriate.
Farmers basically overuse the water which further depletes water table. Even, they are not aware about efficient irrigation system like sprinkle irrigation and drip irrigation etc
Other striking behaviour observed facilitating adaptation to climate change
Collective action
Social network and learning
Different Sources of information
Farmer’s
response
CSISA 2.84
Government Extension agent 6.36
Cooperatives 0.09
Private dealers 7.13
Exhibitions 0.52
Mass media 0.09
Friends, Neighbour and other
farmers 79.46
Relatives or family members 2.92
No response 0.6
Total 100
Note: All values are in per cent.
Source: CSISA Baseline Household Survey, 2010-11.
Background & Motivation
Study area, data & methods
Findings
Conclusions & Policy Implications
We found lack of knowledge among farmers and limited access to information. Hence, climate information services should be introduced and strengthening agriculture extension, and application of print media and mobile could be instrumental here.
Print media contributes significantly to such perception, as is observed from results of this study.
There is scope to reduce the cost of agriculture extension and climate information services by using social network effect in these servics.
Purposeful adaptation, needed for which climate information & agriculture extension services & capacity building programmes could be instrumental.
Thanking you for your time!
