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

One of the major concerns expressed by State Government officials during interactions is that in recent
years, decreased rainfall during the southwest monsoon and increased rainfall in the post monsoon
season was the norm. These weather features have unsettled the normal planting time of Kharif crops.
6.2.2 Farmer’s experiences
Farmers mentioned increase in temperature and prolonged summer. “Earlier, summer periods used to
run from March to June. Now they run from February to October!” claims an agitated farmer. “During
summers, we often have abnormal temperature peaks. The heat becomes unbearable and sometimes
we cannot work on the open fields,” says another. These are common voices from the communities in
the surveyed villages. According to farmers, these changes in temperature and rainfall pattern have
considerable consequences on the livelihood of the communities depending on agriculture.
Sharad, a farmer in his mid forties, complains: "In the past, there were a number of people in this
village, who could predict the exact day that the first rains would come.” He continued: "Nowadays this
is not possible anymore. Our climate has gone crazy and we don’t know why!" Most farmers perceive
climate change in terms of changes in rainfall, which is in their opinion decreasing. This is not the only
problem: Untimely, heavy rainfall frequently causes damage to standing crops. According to farmers,
unseasonal rains are more frequent these days. It happens also more often that excessive rains fall in a
short amount of time and flood the fields, causing considerable damages to crops and infrastructure.
Farmers told that due to delayed onset of monsoon, the sowing operations for the Kharif season are
often late. They gave an example that due to long dry spell in the month of July in 2002, the sowing
operations were affected. Also, thereafter the re-sowing of crops was not possible. The germination
and growth of sown-rabi crops was also adversely affected as the crops in the Rabi season are
basically grown on the moisture stored in the soil during the rainy season.
6.3 Climate Change impacts
About 70 per cent of Maharashtra’s land area is semi-arid to arid, supporting agriculture that is largely
dependent upon monsoon rainfall. Precipitation is concentrated in just a few months of the year and is
highly variable in frequency, intensity and geographic coverage. Climate change is adding to the natural
variability of the weather, causing manifold problems to the farmers in the area. The main issues of
concern mentioned by farmers are discussed in the following section:
6.3.1 Agriculture sector
Climate change impacts on crop yield: Increase in erratic and unreliable rainfall in the area has
substantial impact on crop yields. On the one hand, yields are declining because the crops are
damaged due to untimely and heavy rains. On the other hand, farmers are unable to predict the onset
of the monsoon as they used to 20 years ago. Seasonal shifts are confusing farmers in the important
decision on planting time. Wrong decision on this crucial issue has considerable impacts on yields and
can even lead to complete crop failure.
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