O.P. Parganiha*, M.L. Sharma and H.K. Patra
Dept. of Agril. Extn., IGKV, Raipur (C.G.)
Received-13.01.2015, Revised-28.01.2015
Abstract : Agriculture places heavy burden on the environment in the process of providing humanity with food and fiber, while climate is the primary determinant of agricultural productivity. Given the fundamental role of agriculture in human welfare, concern has been expressed by federal agencies and others regarding the potential effects of climate change on agricultural productivity. To examine how farmer‘s have been mitigating to disaster due to adverse effect of climate change. The present study was conducted in plain zone of Chhattisgarh state in the year 2013-14. For the purpose, 240 farmers of Chhattisgarh plain were interviewed. Based on the results of the interviews most of the farmers (about 90%) mentioned that they faced drought and erratic rainfall as disaster during previous 15 years. Majority of the affected farmers (about 50%) reported that their income and yield reduced due to flooding or heavy rainfall. In case of erratic rainfall, drought and frost same losses had reported by most of the affected farmers. About 61.57, 23.78, 14.42 and 8.04 per cent of affected farmers said that they had lost their livestock due to drought, environmental pollution, erratic rainfall and flood, respectively. As regards to copping mechanism practiced by farmers to mitigate losses from disaster, majority of the farmers borrowed loan to mitigate adverse effect of frost (79.14%), erratic rainfall (72.09%), drought (60.19%) and flood (38.19%).However, poor and marginalized groups were unaware regarding climate change impacts and adaptation measures. Thus, these measures were found to be event specific based on local knowledge and innovations, and not actually to cope with the impacts of climate change.
Keywords : Climate, Disaster, Farmers, Chhattisgarh
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