Kumari, MeeraRanjan, Ranjeet Kumar2021-08-162021-08-162021-02https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810171920Climate change influences crop yield vis-a-vis crop production to a greater extent in Bihar. Climate change and its impacts are well recognizing today and it will affect both physical and biological system. Therefore, this study has been planned to assess the effect of climate variables on yield of major crops, adaptation measures undertaken along with the identification of constraints faced by the farmers in Samastipur district of Bihar. Secondary data on yield of maize and wheat crops were collected from Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Government of Bihar, and data of climatic variables were obtained from Department of Meteorology, RPCAU, Pusa, Bihar for the period from 1999-2019 to describe the effects of climate variable namely rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature on yield of maize and wheat. In addition to this, cost of cultivation and minimum support price of maize and wheat also collected from published sources to assess the impact of climatic variable on income of farmers over the study period. Further, to assess the adaptation measure taken as well as problem faced, a household survey of 120 farmers were conducted in two blocks (Pusa and Tajpur). To assess the impacts of climate change on crop yields, regression model was used after obtaining lagged values of model variables. Results from the analysis of time series data indicated that annual rainfall were positively and significantly related to yields of wheat crops while maximum temperature and minimum temperature had a negative impact on maize and wheat yields. For instance, a 1 °C maximum temperature increased decreases yields of maize by 10 per cent. The study has actually revealed that other factors, such as type of soil, soil fertility and method of farming may also be responsible for crop yield. Findings of study also indicated that income and cost of cultivation has no significant relationship with climate variable, means income of farmers changed due to change in the other factors rather than change in climatic variable over the period under study as cost of cultivation increases with increased in the price of input over the period not due to change climatic variable. This study thus concludes that food-crops grown in summer are adversely affected by the current trend of climate. Other summer crops are adversely affected by increase in rainfall and maximum temperature. On the other hand, though rainfall is at declining trend in winter, increase in temperature has positively contributed to the yield growth of both winter crops. With this, we can recommend that any program dealing with minimizing adverse impact of climate change on food-crops production should first consider the crops like maize and wheat. Moreover, these two crops are important staple food for Samastipur district. Micro-level findings substantiate that farming experience and access to information on climate change have a positive and significant influence on farmers. Other variables such as education, farm size and implements and machinery ownership are positively and significantly related to the choice of adaptation measures. The majority of the farmers suggested soil and water conservation (SWC) practices such as land levelling, change in crop calendar, crop diversification, reduced tillage etc, could be a better option to limit the adverse effects of climate change on cereal crops especially maize and wheat.EnglishThesis