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Assessing effectiveness of agricultural adaptation strategies in context of crop loss: a case study of the Indian subcontinent
Journal
Regional Environmental Change
ISSN
14363798
Date Issued
2022-06-01
Author(s)
Swami, Deepika
Parthasarathy, Devanathan
Abstract
Inevitability of climate change and stressors such as insects, pests, scarcity of water resources, and poor socio-economic condition of farmers have led to a substantial reduction in crop yield across the Indian subcontinent. The farming community follows adaptation measures to deal with these multiple stressors. Sometimes following the adaptation measures leads to a detrimental impact on crop yield, land, and soil quality. This raises the question of the effectiveness of these adaptation measures, that is, whether these strategies have enough potential to deal with the multiple stressors (climate, insects, water scarcity) or not. It requires a closer examination of the negative consequences of these adaptation measures, which is missing in the literature. To fill this gap, the current study assesses the success or failure of an agricultural adaptation strategy followed by identification of the relative importance of each strategy from the crop-loss perspective. We used logit model to evaluate the effectiveness of adaptation measures i.e., crop diversification, sowing drought resistant, short duration crop varieties, drip irrigation, livestock rearing, crop insurance, use of groundwater for irrigation, increase in cropped area, and change in planting/harvesting dates towards crop loss of 400 farmers surveyed across Vidarbha and Marathwada regions of Maharashtra, India. Evaluation of adaptation strategies reveals that the highly practiced adaptation strategies, namely, crop diversification, sowing short duration, and drought resistant crop varieties turned out to be detrimental for crop productivity, while migration and increase in the cropped area benefit the farmers by reducing the crop loss. Findings emphasize that a thorough understanding of the repercussions of an adaptation strategy is required before implementation. Outcome of the study can facilitate the government and other decision-making agencies in prioritizing one strategy over another.
Volume
22
Subjects