A STUDY ON VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE AMONG FARMERS IN CYCLONE AFFECTED DISTRICTS OF ODISHA
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Date
2022
Authors
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
DRPCAU, PUSA
Abstract
Climate change is a global phenomenon. Agriculture and allied sector is at alarming
position as it is highly vulnerable to climate change. Global population is exposed to frequent
and intensive hazards, viz., cyclones, drought, floods, heat waves, melting glaciers, and
increasing sea levels due to climate change and human interventions. Among all the hazards,
cyclones are one of the most frequent and leading natural hazards worldwide that causes
massive causalities. Considering all these factors, the present study was carried out in
Ganjam and Puri district of Odisha to examine farmers' vulnerability to distinct cyclones.
Both the districts were selected purposively because out of six coastal districts these two were
highly prone to cyclonic events. Total of 2 blocks from each district; thus total of 4 blocks
were chosen through the application of computer-based research randomizer technique to
eliminate the bias. Total of 8 villages were taken from the 4 blocks, i.e., two villages per
block. Twenty respondents were chosen randomly from each of the eight villages. Thus, a
total of 160 respondents were selected for the present investigation. The vulnerability index
was developed following Analytical Hierarchy Process (Saaty, 2008). Resilience in relation
"A Study on Vulnerability and Resilience
among Farmers in Cyclone Affected
Districts of Odisha"
to farmers' life was determined by RFL-Scale developed by Lal (2014). Reliability and
validity was tested for the RFL-Scale scale. Finally, constraints were ranked that were
encountered by farmers to cope up with cyclone vagaries following Garrett's Ranking method
(1979). Data were collected by the researcher through direct observation, personal interviews,
focus group discussion, and well-structured interview scheduled prepared and verified by
experts. Statistical tools used in this study to analyze the data were Mean, Frequency,
Percentage, Standard Deviation, Standard Error, Computer-based research randomizer
technique, Analytical Hierarchy Process, Multi Nomial Logit Model (MNLM), and Garrett's
Ranking Method. It was evident from the result that most of the respondents were middleaged,
male, scheduled caste, married, nuclear family, and had pucca houses. The majority of
respondents had completed a medium level of educational year, medium year of farming
Experience, medium level of social participation, medium level of family income, medium
extension contact, and medium range of mass media exposure. Respondents had low
livestock holding, marginal land holding, and high community participation. Nearly two-third
of total respondents (63.75%) were moderately vulnerable, followed by (20%) and (16.25%)
of respondents were vulnerable and less vulnerable, respectively. It was observed that most of
the respondents (73.75%) and (78.75%) were moderately vulnerable in Ganjam and Puri
districts, respectively. In district-wise comparison, Puri was more vulnerable than Ganjam,
with mean values (-0.295 ± 0.018) and (0.241 ± 0.015), respectively. Age (P=0.045) and
community Participation (P=0.016) were found to be negatively significant at 5%, affecting
respondents' vulnerability to fall in the moderately vulnerable category and vulnerable
category, respectively. Keeping other factors constant, one unit increase in age reduces the
probability of respondents to fell into moderately vulnerable category by factor 0.854, which
is about 15%. When other factors were constant, increase in one unit in community
participation decreases probability of respondents to fall under vulnerability category by
factor 0.276. The odds ratio shows that a decrease in community participation by one unit
reduces the vulnerability by 72%. Land holding and sex were positively significant at 1%,
increasing the likelihood of respondents falling into the moderately vulnerable to vulnerable
category. Land holding is with fair Wald statistics 11.437 and odds ratio 7.875. Experience in
Farming, Secondary Income, and Social Participation were found to be positively significant
at 10% level. The odds ratio shows that increase experience in farming by one unit increases
the farmers’ vulnerability by 13.3%. It was elicited that, as per respondents, multipurpose
cyclone shelter with global priority (GP=0.11) was most responsible for adaptive capacity
and availability of grazing land area (GP=0.02) was least responsible for adaptive capacity,
respectively. In the RFL-Scale most of the respondents (47.50%) were vulnerable, followed
by coping (28.12%), fragile (15.62%), resilient (5.63%), and in need (3.13%). Among social
constraints, "damage to residential as well as other infrastructures" was most important with
Garrett's value (62.38). Economic constraints "huge loss to cultivated crops" was ranked first
with Garrett's score (62.72). In environmental constraints, respondents perceived "rain and
storms lead to flooding after cyclone" (64.53) was ranked as the most important among four
broad constraints. Top most miscellaneous constraint perceived by respondents was
"unavailability of food and clean drinking water" (61.52) in the study area.