The findings are summarized in the following points:
• Households belonging to BPL, households which own the land and those
receiving medical or any other kind of aid are least likely to opt for selling of
livestock.
• Most of women-headed households opted for sale of household assets, whereas
male-headed households were not opting it as coping strategies.
• Female-headed households were not opting for additional loans to cop up with
losses due to climate vagaries. Similar is the case with that receiving government relief for natural disasters.
• Respondents belonging to OBC and above middle class were not receiving the
government relief for natural disasters, and had to resort to other coping
strategies.
• Money received from friends and relatives were used mainly to cover up short
fall in supply of food and other necessary items.
7 Discussion
The areas which were vulnerable in the earlier time continued to be more vulnerable. But the study focused changes during the past 5 years only, as collecting
information through recall method is difficult for beyond 5 years period. Majority
of households were affected by climate extremes and most of them carved out their
own adaptation strategies, especially in case of livestock rearing. There is still lack
of initiatives in the climate adaptation policies from the government agencies and
most of the households believe that there has to be intervention from the government, especially in natural disasters, with respect to crops and livestock. Insurance
sector also can play a vital role in this regard.
The trend in crop-livestock production shows that milk production is less susceptible to draft conditions, compared to crop production. Farmers have developed
their own adaptation strategies to vagaries of nature by shifting from field crops to
cash crops, adoption of scientific management practices for crops and livestock. It
was observed that milk production can be sustained even under stress if population
is optimized along with proper management of available feed-fodder resources.
This is more important for feed-fodder deficit states like Karnataka.
8 Suggestions and Implications
The study brings out a few suggestions for helping to cop up the vulnerability of
climate variability for the farmers. It requires efforts at various levels of stakeholders such as farmers, line department officials, scientists, policy makers, etc.
436
G. Letha Devi et al.
• Households belonging to BPL, households which own the land and those
receiving medical or any other kind of aid are least likely to opt for selling of
livestock.
• Most of women-headed households opted for sale of household assets, whereas
male-headed households were not opting it as coping strategies.
• Female-headed households were not opting for additional loans to cop up with
losses due to climate vagaries. Similar is the case with that receiving government relief for natural disasters.
• Respondents belonging to OBC and above middle class were not receiving the
government relief for natural disasters, and had to resort to other coping
strategies.
• Money received from friends and relatives were used mainly to cover up short
fall in supply of food and other necessary items.
7 Discussion
The areas which were vulnerable in the earlier time continued to be more vulnerable. But the study focused changes during the past 5 years only, as collecting
information through recall method is difficult for beyond 5 years period. Majority
of households were affected by climate extremes and most of them carved out their
own adaptation strategies, especially in case of livestock rearing. There is still lack
of initiatives in the climate adaptation policies from the government agencies and
most of the households believe that there has to be intervention from the government, especially in natural disasters, with respect to crops and livestock. Insurance
sector also can play a vital role in this regard.
The trend in crop-livestock production shows that milk production is less susceptible to draft conditions, compared to crop production. Farmers have developed
their own adaptation strategies to vagaries of nature by shifting from field crops to
cash crops, adoption of scientific management practices for crops and livestock. It
was observed that milk production can be sustained even under stress if population
is optimized along with proper management of available feed-fodder resources.
This is more important for feed-fodder deficit states like Karnataka.
8 Suggestions and Implications
The study brings out a few suggestions for helping to cop up the vulnerability of
climate variability for the farmers. It requires efforts at various levels of stakeholders such as farmers, line department officials, scientists, policy makers, etc.
436
G. Letha Devi et al.