Dryland Farmers on Climate Resilient Practices – An Adoption Study at an Industrialized Taluk of Tamil Nadu

Aims: To study the adoption of climate resilient practices by the farmers in the dryland region.

Study Design: Cross-sectional survey design was used for the present descriptive study.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, Allahabad (Prayagraj) during the year of 2018 and for the period of 6 months.

Methodology: The study used direct interview method with the subjects using a structured and pre-tested interview schedule for primary data collection in the sampled area which is an industrialized taluk of Tamil Nadu. The selection of area was purposeful, whereas, selection of villages was random and 15 respondents form each village was convenient. The collected data was tabulated and interpreted using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis.

Results: The results of the study suggest that there is a poor adoption level of climate resilient practices existing among the dryland farmers. While, some of the practices like incorporation of residues in to soil instead of burning, brown and green manuring, conservation tillage, temperature tolerant varieties, farm machinery custom hiring centre, location specific intercropping systems, crop rotation, usage of better planting materials, prophylaxis, custom hiring centre and weather based insurance were adopted to some extent. Though there was no specific intervention to sensitize on these practices, adoption of above mentioned practices were found which could be due to the passive adaptation by the farmers of the locality over years. And the results of correlation analysis revealed that there is a significant relationship between adoption of climate resilient practices and variables like the respondents’ education, exposure to mass media exposure, contacts with extension agents, innovativeness level, risk orientation and scientific orientation at 0.01% level of significance.

Conclusion: The results of the study will definitely help in evaluating government projects (as baseline) like National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture, and strengthening programme planning and implementation in climate change.