A Study on Constraints Faced by Farmers in Adapting to Climate Change in Rainfed Agriculture

The present study determines the constraints faced by farmers in adaptability measures to climate change in rainfed region. A sample of 150 farmers was interviewed from Mahaboobnagar, Ranga Reddy and Ananthapur districts of Andhra Pradesh, India. The findings revealed that personal constraints like small size and fragmented landholdings (60%), low literacy level (56%) and inadequate knowledge (45%) of how to cope or build resilience as the major constraints. The poor extension service on climate risk management (72%), non-availability of drought tolerant varieties, lack of access to weather forecasting technology and poor reliability on it, dependence on monsoon (64%) were the major institutional and technological constraints faced by the farmers. The study suggested that improving information access on climate risk management, access of institutional credit on soil and water conservation practices, and capacity building programmes strengthens the famers' adaptation capacity under changing climate.