Adaptability of Farmers to Climate Change in North Bank Plains Zone of Assam

Abstract

The study was carried out to assess the adaptability of farmers to climate change in North Bank Plains Zone of Assam. A household level survey was carried out with the selected farmers to obtain the primary data. For this, total 120 farmers were selected from 6 different villages through proportionate random sampling. The adaptability was assessed by following the procedure of Shankar et al. [1]. Adaptation Index for each management practice was calculated and the score ranged from 0 to 100. Findings revealed that adaptation practices such as use of organic manure, summer deep ploughing, conservation tillage, bunds and change in variety were followed by most of the farmers to cope up with the climate change. The adaptation practices such as water harvesting, use of ITK, bird perched, intercropping and protected cultivation were followed by least number of farmers to cope up with climate change. The study also revealed that majority of the respondents (67.67%) belonged to medium adaptability category followed by 19.17 per cent of respondents in low adaptability category and 14.17 per cent respondents in high adaptability category. The mean adaptability score was 11.71 indicating that, on an average, respondents had medium adaptability.