Climate variability and mitigation: perceptions and strategies adopted by traditional coffee growers in India

The study explores coffee growers’ perceptions of climate variability and their coping and adaptive strategies to a changing environment. The results are based on a survey conducted with 56 spatially distributed coffee growers from across the traditionally coffee-growing Kodagu district of Karnataka located in the Western Ghats of India. In general, the growers perceived an increase in temperature, delay in onset of monsoon and an erratic pattern in the distribution of rainfall. These qualitative perceptions were substantiated with the long-term weather data of the district. Growers’ adaptive strategies for climate variability are composed of mainly agronomic management interventions and crop diversification. Besides, off-farm income diversification is adopted by a few coffee growers. The estimates of an ordered probit model indicated that coffee growers’ age, size of land holding, decrease in yield, delay in monsoon, increase in temperature and unpredictability of seasons exert a positive influence on cl...