Climate change to hit big farmers too in Telangana: Study
Dispelling the popular myth that climate change will spell doom only for small and marginal farmers, a study has found that even the large farmers in Telangana may not be spared from its fallouts.
The study, conducted by researchers from ICRISAT, German Development Institute and the Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University, on Telangana’s farming community covering 6,214 households in three droughtprone districts of the state, has found out that 79% of the households were extremely vulnerable to climate change.
The research paper titled `Household Vulnerability to Climate Change and Identification of Target Beneficiaries to Implement Household-Specific Adaptation Strategies:’ found that while 11.2% households in these districts were moderately vulnerable, only 9.65% were resilient.
26% large farmers in vulnerable list too
What is interesting is that while a majority of the ‘extremely vulnerable farmers’ were marginal and smallholder ones, nearly 26% of large farmers fell in this category. On the other hand, in the resilient category nearly 55% were large farmers, 15% were medium farmers and small and marginal farmers did not figure in this category at all.
The researchers have mooted that policymakers shun a ‘one size fits all approach’ and instead consider a tailored approach to help farmers mitigate the climate crisis.
“Given that households in different districts in Telangana have varying degrees of vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, targeted approaches should be designed and administered to ensure sustainable crop production,” the study said.
The vulnerability of households was assessed based on factors such as access to irrigation, credit access, landholding, income from agriculture, household size & income sources, access to information & climate smart adaptation practices and social capital.
Elaborating on the ‘extremely vulnerable farmers’, the study said that they had the least access to irrigation, credit facilities, climate information, fewer income sources for diversification, smaller social networks and had adopted the fewest climate-smart adaptation practices.
The study suggested that combining appropriate irrigation technology with less water-intensive crops can potentially reduce the vulnerability of farmers in the extremely vulnerable category.
“Diversifying crop options to include less water-intensive and drought-tolerant crops such as millets; financing the construction of small on-farm water conservation structures to store rainwater; promoting livestock-based activities through centrally sponsored schemes; and increasing access to climate information are some potential adaptation options that emerged during stakeholder consultations. These can increase the resilience of farmers in the vulnerable categories,” the study said.
Agriculture is an important sector for the state as it accounts for 16% of state’s GDP and nearly 60% of the state’s population depend on agriculture for their livelihood.