Since in India, agriculture—not merely a simple food producing technology but
a complex and complete system in itself—evolved over several millennia in tune
with the ecosystem and weaving people’s life style and source of livelihood into
one durable texture, farming with all its dimensions needed to be considered at the
planning level (Dubey 2008).
2 Brief Review of Literature
The human economy rests within the ecosphere and cannot exist outside it, several
concepts neglected or misunderstood by neoclassical economics become critically
important. These ideas, beginning with the co-evolutionary paradigm, form the core
of the ecological economics perspective. Ecological economics emphasizes the
co-evolutionary development of human beings and the natural world. The natural
world is ultimately irrelevant to human economic activity. Near-perfect substitutability implies that economic output can remain constant or even increase as
natural resource inputs are reduced to zero, so long as labour and manufactured
capital are increased enough to make up the difference (Prugh 1999).
Poverty is used in this study as an important indicator of individual vulnerability
to climate extremes and to climate change, because poverty can be directly related
to marginalization and lack of access to resources which are critical when faced
with the risk of hazards and the resultant stress on livelihoods. Resource dependency is an element of individual vulnerability and is constituted by reliance on a
narrow range of resources leading to social and economic stresses within livelihood
systems. The role of credit in recovery from stress and disruption of livelihoods is
particularly important where external assistance is not available for immediate
injection of resources (Adger 1999).
The adaptation strategies farmers perceive as appropriate (as opposed to the
strategies they actually carry out) include crop diversification; using different crop
varieties; varying the planting and harvesting dates; increasing the use of irrigation;
increasing the use of water and soil conservation techniques, shading and shelter;
shortening the length of the growing season and diversifying from farming to
non-farming activities (Hassan 2008).
Indigenous adapting to climate change strategies in the study area include,
planting different varieties of crops, cultivating different crops, shortening growing
season, changing the extend of land put into crop production, changing to irrigation
the use of chemical fertilizer, improve in water maximization and mulching.
Poverty and ignorance of various adaptation strategies are the major contributing
factors to the impact felt by indigenous people. The knowledge and information gap
concerning the effect of climate change, information dissemination, awareness
programmes and training programmes calls for immediate action in order to relegate the impact of climate change in the study areas (Ishaya 2008)
272
D. Chand and R. Gartia
a complex and complete system in itself—evolved over several millennia in tune
with the ecosystem and weaving people’s life style and source of livelihood into
one durable texture, farming with all its dimensions needed to be considered at the
planning level (Dubey 2008).
2 Brief Review of Literature
The human economy rests within the ecosphere and cannot exist outside it, several
concepts neglected or misunderstood by neoclassical economics become critically
important. These ideas, beginning with the co-evolutionary paradigm, form the core
of the ecological economics perspective. Ecological economics emphasizes the
co-evolutionary development of human beings and the natural world. The natural
world is ultimately irrelevant to human economic activity. Near-perfect substitutability implies that economic output can remain constant or even increase as
natural resource inputs are reduced to zero, so long as labour and manufactured
capital are increased enough to make up the difference (Prugh 1999).
Poverty is used in this study as an important indicator of individual vulnerability
to climate extremes and to climate change, because poverty can be directly related
to marginalization and lack of access to resources which are critical when faced
with the risk of hazards and the resultant stress on livelihoods. Resource dependency is an element of individual vulnerability and is constituted by reliance on a
narrow range of resources leading to social and economic stresses within livelihood
systems. The role of credit in recovery from stress and disruption of livelihoods is
particularly important where external assistance is not available for immediate
injection of resources (Adger 1999).
The adaptation strategies farmers perceive as appropriate (as opposed to the
strategies they actually carry out) include crop diversification; using different crop
varieties; varying the planting and harvesting dates; increasing the use of irrigation;
increasing the use of water and soil conservation techniques, shading and shelter;
shortening the length of the growing season and diversifying from farming to
non-farming activities (Hassan 2008).
Indigenous adapting to climate change strategies in the study area include,
planting different varieties of crops, cultivating different crops, shortening growing
season, changing the extend of land put into crop production, changing to irrigation
the use of chemical fertilizer, improve in water maximization and mulching.
Poverty and ignorance of various adaptation strategies are the major contributing
factors to the impact felt by indigenous people. The knowledge and information gap
concerning the effect of climate change, information dissemination, awareness
programmes and training programmes calls for immediate action in order to relegate the impact of climate change in the study areas (Ishaya 2008)
272
D. Chand and R. Gartia