Meteorological drought and coping strategies by small and marginal farmers in semi-arid Karnataka
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53550/Keywords:
Coping strategies, Drought, Marginal farmers, Mitigation, WatershedAbstract
Occurrence of frequent droughts of varying intensities is a critical constraint in improving agricultural productivity in the dry tropics. This paper quantifies meteorological drought from long-term annual rainfall data. Analysis of primary survey data from two watersheds indicated that moisture stress and fodder shortage were the major shocks experienced by farmers during drought, which caused low productivity of crops and animals. Farmers had their own strategies to cope with the drought like diversifying farming practices, borrowing, migration, sale of assets and livestock. The logit regression model indicated that coping strategies were influenced by number of earning family members, availability of irrigation facility, animal holding and income from non-farm sources. There is an urgent need to implement drought mitigation measures by central and state government institutions through both short and long term strategies covering technological and policy interventions like alternate cropping systems that augment soil moisture conservation, emphasis on water harvesting and ground water recharge, ensuring fodder and seed supplies, credit assistance, etc.
References
Arya, S.L., Yadav, R.P., Singh, P. and Bhatt, V.K. 2012. Enhancing livelihood security through diversification: A farm level analysis in Shiwalik region of Haryana. Ind. J. Soil Cons., 40(3): 263 269.
Basant, R. 1997. Technology strategies of large enterprises in Indianindustry: Some explorations. World Dev, 25(10): 1683-1700.
Biradar, N. and Sridhar, K. 2009. Consequences of 2003 drought in Karnataka with particular reference to livestock and fodder. J.Human Ecol., 26(2): 123-130.
Durbude, D.G. 2008. Drought identification and characterization of semiarid districts of North Karnataka. Ind. J. Soil Cons., 36(1): 11-15.
Garett, E.H. and Woodworth, R.S. 1969. Statistics in psychology and Education .Vakils, Feffer and Simons Pvt. Ltd., Bombay, 329 p.
GoK (Government of Karnataka), Livestock Census, 2003. Director of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services, Government of Karnataka, Bangalore
Gujarati, D.N. 2004. Basic Econometrics Fourth edition. Tata McGraw- Hill Publishing Company Limited,NewDelhi, India, pp. 580-625.
Hill, M.A. 1983. Female labour force participation in developing and developed countries: Consideration of the informal sector. Rev. Econ. Stat., 63(3): 459-468.
Jodha, N.S. 1978. Effectiveness of farmer's adjustments to risk. Econ. Pol. Weekly, 13(25):A38-A48.
McKee, T.B., Doesken, N.J. and Kleist, J. 1993. The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales. Pre-prints, Eighth Conference on Applied Climatology, Anaheim, California, USA,pp.179-184.
Misra, A.K. 2005. Contingency planning for feeding and management of livestock during drought. In: Drought Management, eds: K.D. Sharma and K.S. Ramasastri, Allied Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi. pp. 276-286.
NRAA. 2012. Prioritization of rainfed areas in India. Study Report 4, NRAA, NewDelhi,100 p.
Osman, M., Hafis, S., Mishra, P.K. and Vijaya Kumar, P. 2010.Acase study of drought in Andhra Pradesh: Socio-economic impacts and mitigation strategies. Ind. J. Dryland Agri. Res. Dev, 25(2): 44-57.
Panchamukhi, P.R., Trivedi, P., Debi, S., Kulkarni, A.K. and Sharma, P. 2008. Natural resource accounting in Karnataka:Astudy of the land &forestry sector Government of Karnataka, 254 p.
Pasha, S.M. 2000. Economic and ecological dimensions of livestock Economy . Commonwealth Publishers,NewDelhi, 220 p.
Rathore, M.S. 2004. State level analysis of drought policies and impacts in Rajasthan, India. Working Paper 93, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 29 p.
Sabarathnam, V.E. 2002. R/R/PRA (PLA) for agriculture , Vamsaravath Publishers, Hyderabad, 2002, 353 p.
Samra, J.S. 2004. Review and analysis of drought monitoring, declaration and management in India.Working Paper 84. Drought Series Paper 2. InternationalWater Management Institute, Colombo, 31p.
Sonmez, F.K., Komuscu, A.U., Erkan, A. and Turgu, E. 2005. An analysis of spatial and temporal dimension of drought vulnerability in Turkey using the standardized precipitation index. Nat.Hazards, 35(2):243-264.
Tideman, E. and Khatana, V. 2004. Drought coping strategies in semi-arid India. Indo-German Bilateral Project “Watershed Management”, GermanTechnical Cooperation, 47 p.
Tsakiris, G., Loukas, A., Pangalou, D., Vangelis, H., Tigkas, D., Rossi, G. and Cancelliere, A. 2002. Drought characterization, option Méditerranéennes , 58: 85-102.
Venkateswarlu, B. and Prasad, J.V.N.S. 2012. Carrying capacity of Indian agriculture: Issues related to rainfed agriculture. Curr. Sci., 102(6): 882-888.
Wani, S.P., Sarvesh, K.V., Krishnappa, K., Dharmarajan, B.K. and Deepaja, S.M. 2012. Bhoochetana: Mission to boost productivity of rainfed agriculture through science-led interventions in Karnataka. ICRISAT, Hyderabad, India, 84 p.
Wilhite, D.A. and Glantz, M.H. 1985. Understanding the drought phenomenon: The role of definitions. Water Int., 10: 111-120.
Zepeda, L. 1990. Adoption of capital versus management intensive technologies. Can. J. Agri. Econ, 38: 457-469.
