Farmers' Response and Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change in Low-Hills of Himachal Pradesh in India

The study examined the farmers' perceptions regarding climate change, types of adaptation strategies, factors influencing adaptation choices and barriers to adaptation, in the low-hill zone of Himachal Pradesh in India. In low-hill zone, 202 farm households were randomly considered for the study. In the region, 62.4 % of the farm households were of the opinion that temperature has increased during the last 10 years, whereas, 57.9% of the respondents have perceived that there is a decrease in rainfall in low-hills of the state. In this part of the state, people have switched over to off farm jobs to meet their livelihood as perceived by 89.1 percent of the respondents. At farm level, farmers have adopted irrigation, crop diversification, change of sowing/planting dates and crop variety as the strategies to cope up with the changing situation. About 50% of the people have perceived that high cost of adaptation, limited knowledge of adaptation measures, lack of access to technology, labour availability and early weather warnings were the main barriers to climate change adaptation. In the region, adaptation to climate change was influenced by education level, household and farm size, access to irrigation and credit, and number of salaried persons in the household.