Adaptation of small scale farmers to climatic risks in India - Sustainet

2.1.2 Land use and cropping patterns
The main occupation of the people residing in these villages is agriculture. The majority of the
population is completely dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. The land holdings are categorized
into small (1-2 ha), medium (2-10 ha) and large (over 10 ha) size and mostly rain fed. According to
farmers, the average crop production ratio is 5 years of poor production, followed by one year of
average crop production. Over 90 % of the farm holdings in the visited villages are small and medium
farms. Bigger farms are very rare as traditionally farmland is passed on in equal shares to the male
heirs of a family. This practice is splitting up farm holdings into smaller and smaller parcels and it is
common to find fields of a size of less than one ha. The most common crops sown in the study area are
bajra (pearl millet), jowar (sorghum) and pulses in the Kharif (Rainy) season, and wheat, barley, gram
and mustard in the Rabi (winter) season.
2.2 Evidences of Climate change
2.2.1 Scientific evidence
Low rainfall coupled with erratic monsoons makes Rajasthan vulnerable to drought. A recent report of
the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology analyzed the rainfall patterns all over the country and
indicated an overall decreasing trend in the rainfall in Eastern Rajasthan. The study, analyzing more
than 100 years of regional rainfall data found decreasing trends in overall, winter and summer-monsoon
rainfall, while pre- and post-monsoon summer rainfall showed increasing trends (Sontakke et al. 2008).
Government sources indicate a similar development, as they claim to observe a decrease in total
number of rainy days (see Table 1.) As most of the agricultural activity in the study area is rain fed
farming, this is not a good indicator for the farmers.
Table 1. Variations in total number of rainy days in eastern Rajasthan (1975 to 2005)
Year No. of Rainy days
1975 53
1985 34
1995 42
2005 21
Source: www.waterresources.rajasthan.gov.in
2.2.2 Farmer’s experiences
Based on the results of the interviews with the farmers most of the farmers mentioned that the villages
face climatic conditions, characterized by high natural variability and thus frequent climatic extremes as
very high temperatures, prolonged dry spells or heavy precipitation. High natural variability of the
climate in Rajasthan makes it difficult to attribute weather events unambiguously to climate change.
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