Climate Risks and Adaptive Behaviour of Paddy Farmers of Ganjam District in Odisha

Ganjam district is one of the coastal districts in Odisha has experienced a number of climate risks like cyclone, flood, drought, etc. in last couple of years. On October 12, 2013, the district was hit by Cyclone ‘Phailin’. Subsequently there was a cyclone called ‘Hudhud’ affected Odisha coastal districts in the year 2014. Last year during 2018, over 60 lakh people were affected by flood due to heavy rainfall triggered by Cyclone ‘Titli’. Of the 22 blocks in Ganjam district, 13 were badly hit due to cyclone and floods. Added to cyclones, the state has experienced contrasting extreme weather conditions which include heat waves, droughts and floods. Like other parts of Odisha, Ganjam district is also very much agricultural dependent. Due to erratic climate behaviour, farmers’ income is not found to be stable. Analysis of secondary time series data reveals that agricultural production cycle and actual rainfall cycle seems to be very much pro-cyclical in nature indicating that a farmer is continuously subject to production risks in a cyclical manner. Owing to such risks, farmers have adopted number of strategies like alternative employment, migration, cost cutting in agriculture, income diversification and change in cropping pattern to augment their income and livelihood. The study finds that due to cost cutting measures farmers have adopted mechanisation. There is reportedly disinvestment in bovine animal particularly bullocks, buffaloes and so also the cattle shed and harvesting yard. As a result of that farmers are not managing the crop residues properly and there is large scale paddy straw burning by almost 70 percent of the overall paddy farmers which from the environmentalists’ point of is against the environmental conservation parameters. The paper suggests that there should be more sensitisation programmes for value chain development of paddy straw and against paddy-straw burning as it is against environmental conservation approaches.