Perceived Barriers to the Adoption of Climate Smart Adaptive Livelihood Technology by the Farmers in Flood Prone Areas of Assam

Abstract

Flood is an annual major natural disaster of Assam. It causes a huge loss to human, animal, crop, infrastructures and natural resources. Since agriculture is the prime source of livelihood and majority of inhabitants resides in rural areas, the impact of flood has a vital role in the living conditions of Assam’s population. In the present study different kinds of barriers were identified which found to create resistance in the resilience building by the farmers in the studied area. Here the Garrett’s ranking technique was used to rank the barriers associated with the resilience building by the farmers in the study area. The problem of limited skills upon climate smart adaptive livelihood technology (CSALT) got the highest mean score of 65.55 and ranked 1st among all the identified problems. However, the last rank was given to the problem of limited resources with farmers to invest in CSALT having mean score 44.44. It was seen that after the extension problem the other key problems in descending order of value were economic problem such as unavailability of quality seeds and planting materials at right time, unavailability of labour in vital period of farming, in addition to which higher wage and lack of post harvest technologies and marketing facilities were also observed along with communication and information problems and socio-personal problem. Moreover reluctance to take up new project due to deprived risk taking ability, lack of awareness and skill on advanced farming technologies, lack of interest in cultivation due to poor return in short term with poor educational status of the farmers were some of the observed barriers.