Climate Change and Natural Capital:
Some Veiled Issues on Sustainable
Livelihood in Agriculture Sector
Digambar Chand and Rajendra Gartia
Abstract Natural capital refers to the planet’s stocks of water, land, air, and
renewable and non-renewable resources (such as plant and animal species, forests,
and minerals). It accounts for vital information regarding economic dependence and
impact on natural world. Governments and businesses face the challenges of
extracting the most from these scarce resources. Climate change, natural capital and
economies have impact on each other. Economic activity drives climate change but
both affect natural capital stock. We should calculate the economic cost of these
services if we had to provide them ourselves. Many non-material benefits, such as
spiritual or aesthetic enjoyment are also obtained from nature apart from food, fibre
and fuel. Thus, it is necessary to understand the consequences of any climate change
strategy on other dimensions of human well-being. Moreover, it also affects to
livelihood. Agriculture is the main livelihood of Odisha. Every year it is affected by
flood, drought, early/late arrival of monsoon, etc. As agriculture is highly dependent
on climatic variations, sustainability of agriculture is a matter of question due to
increased agricultural uncertainty. Therefore, food security poses a challenge to the
world. Climate change is projected to have significant impacts on agricultural
conditions, food supply and food security. The present research focuses on different
practices for sustainable agriculture with respect to land, water, vegetation, farm
animals and labour as a whole. A multi-stage random sampling technique was
adopted for the collection of primary data. Test of significance of proportion has
been adopted for drawing valid statistical inferences about the population parameters. It is found that there is no significant difference in proportion between the
respondents over selection of right crop for the soil, maintaining optimal cropping
intensity, rain water conservation, regular cleaning of channels, keeping birds,
providing animal health check up. This paper concludes with the suggestions dealing
D. Chand (&)
Department of Economics, Bamra Trust Fund College, Bamra, Odisha, India
e-mail: digambarchand@hotmail.com
R. Gartia
Department of Statistics, Sambalpur University, Jyoti Vihar,
Burla, Odisha, India
e-mail: rajendra.gartia@gmail.com
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
S. Nautiyal et al. (eds.), Climate Change Challenge (3C)
and Social-Economic-Ecological Interface-Building, Environmental Science,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-31014-5_15
261
Some Veiled Issues on Sustainable
Livelihood in Agriculture Sector
Digambar Chand and Rajendra Gartia
Abstract Natural capital refers to the planet’s stocks of water, land, air, and
renewable and non-renewable resources (such as plant and animal species, forests,
and minerals). It accounts for vital information regarding economic dependence and
impact on natural world. Governments and businesses face the challenges of
extracting the most from these scarce resources. Climate change, natural capital and
economies have impact on each other. Economic activity drives climate change but
both affect natural capital stock. We should calculate the economic cost of these
services if we had to provide them ourselves. Many non-material benefits, such as
spiritual or aesthetic enjoyment are also obtained from nature apart from food, fibre
and fuel. Thus, it is necessary to understand the consequences of any climate change
strategy on other dimensions of human well-being. Moreover, it also affects to
livelihood. Agriculture is the main livelihood of Odisha. Every year it is affected by
flood, drought, early/late arrival of monsoon, etc. As agriculture is highly dependent
on climatic variations, sustainability of agriculture is a matter of question due to
increased agricultural uncertainty. Therefore, food security poses a challenge to the
world. Climate change is projected to have significant impacts on agricultural
conditions, food supply and food security. The present research focuses on different
practices for sustainable agriculture with respect to land, water, vegetation, farm
animals and labour as a whole. A multi-stage random sampling technique was
adopted for the collection of primary data. Test of significance of proportion has
been adopted for drawing valid statistical inferences about the population parameters. It is found that there is no significant difference in proportion between the
respondents over selection of right crop for the soil, maintaining optimal cropping
intensity, rain water conservation, regular cleaning of channels, keeping birds,
providing animal health check up. This paper concludes with the suggestions dealing
D. Chand (&)
Department of Economics, Bamra Trust Fund College, Bamra, Odisha, India
e-mail: digambarchand@hotmail.com
R. Gartia
Department of Statistics, Sambalpur University, Jyoti Vihar,
Burla, Odisha, India
e-mail: rajendra.gartia@gmail.com
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
S. Nautiyal et al. (eds.), Climate Change Challenge (3C)
and Social-Economic-Ecological Interface-Building, Environmental Science,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-31014-5_15
261