Impact of Climate Variability on Agriculture in North Karnataka-an Economic Analysis
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Date
2016-06
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University of Agricultural Science, Dharwad
Abstract
Climate and agriculture are inextricably linked. Climate change will affect crop yield per hectare causing food insecurity and loss of livelihood. Therefore, present study was undertaken to analyze the impact of climate variability, weather extremities and impact of weather based farming on farm income in north Karnataka. Results revealed that, in Bellary, Bidar, Vijayapura, Kalaburagi and Raichur districts rainfall showed decreasing trend whereas in Belagavi, Dharwad and Uttara Kannda districts rainfall showed an increasing trend during 1983-2013. Maximum deviation in the magnitude of average rainfall between the driest and wettest years was observed for Uttara Kannada district i.e. 385.7 mm, followed by Belagavi (382.7 mm) and Bidar (332.7 mm) districts. Vulnerability analysis revealed that, Bidar ranked first in the overall vulnerability to climate change among the districts of north Karnataka between 1990 to 2013. Agricultural and occupational sector played a significant role to make Bidar district as highly vulnerable. Belagavi and Vijayapura were selected as drought affected areas. It was observed that yield of bajra, tur, sorghum and greengram were significantly affected due to drought in Vijayapura. Whereas, in Belagavi district sugarcane, safflower, bengalgram and cotton yield were affected significantly due to drought. Farmers were not able to cultivate 14.95 per cent and 27.73 per cent of area in Vijayapura and Belagavi districts respectively during drought. To address these problems farmers from Belagavi district using Agromet Advisory Service (AAS) were surveyed. Farmers were using AAS during spraying of plant protection chemicals followed by irrigation (66.67 %), sowing (43.33 %) and fertilizer application (13.33 %). Net returns obtained by AAS farmers was observed to be more in case of soybean (29.46 %) followed by cotton (28.44 %), wheat (26.49 %), greengram (26.45 %), sorghum (25.42 %), bengalgram (24.54%), sunflower (23.24 %), groundnut (20.92 %) and maize (19.44 %) compared to non-AAS farmers.
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