Socio-economic Determinants of Climate Change Perception and Adaptability: Evidence from Cotton Farmers in Beed District, Maharashtra, India

Abstract

Climate change has emerged as a major threat to sustainable agriculture, particularly in drought-prone regions like Marathwada in Maharashtra, where cotton is a dominant crop grown largely under rainfed conditions. Farmers’ perception of climate change and their adaptability are critical determinants of agricultural resilience. These behavioural responses are influenced by several socio-economic and psychological characteristics, collectively referred to as their impact profile. This study was conducted in Beed district, purposively selected based on documented evidence from the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA) and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) identifying it as one of the most climate-vulnerable districts in India, with recurrent droughts, delayed monsoons, and heat stress. A multi-stage purposive-cum-random sampling design was adopted: in the first stage, Beed and Georai taluks were purposively selected due to their high cotton acreage and repeated exposure to climatic variability; in the second stage, five villages from each taluk were purposively selected based on drought history and proportion of cotton cultivation; in the final stage, ten cotton-growing farmers were randomly selected from each village, resulting in a total sample of 100 respondents. The sample size was determined considering resource feasibility and precedents from similar micro-level climate adaptation studies. Data were collected using structured interviews on variables such as age, education, family size, farming experience, landholding, annual income, extension contact, sources of information, and risk orientation. The dependent variables were perception and adaptability towards climate variability. Correlation analysis indicated that education, annual income, extension contact, and access to information had a highly significant positive relationship with both perception and adaptability. Variables such as age, farming experience, landholding, and risk orientation showed significant relationships at the 5% level. The findings highlight the importance of strengthening extension services, improving access to climate information, and enhancing farmer education to build climate resilience in cotton farming communities.