Mapping adaptive capacity of tribal dairy farmers to climate variability and change: A study of western Himalayan region

Abstract

Tribal farmers are most vulnerable to climate variability and change (CVC) due to their climate sensitive livelihoods and lack of resources to afford the adaptation measures. In order to formulate appropriate programs and policies addressing climate change, it is essential to understand their adaptive capacity (AC). This study analyzed the level of adaptive capacity (AC) of tribal dairy farmers’ households of Himachal Pradesh, part of western Himalayan region (one of the fifteen agro-climatic zones in India), and confronting the factors that cause the differences in AC. Based on the previous studies, AC of each household was determined by developing a composite “Adaptive Capacity Index (ACI) by using method of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with the help of statistical software SPSSv21. ACI was developed underlying the definition of adaptive capacity (AC) as put forward by IPCC (2007), consisting of five index components namely human capital, physical capital, financial capital, social capital and natural capital. Results showed that variations in AC were caused by differences in human capital, physical and financial capital. Tribal households that scored low in these three indicators had lower adaptive capacity (AC). ACI indicated that the most of the tribal dairy farmers (31.88%) of sampled region have low level of AC score category with wide variation in ACI components across the villages and households, which are highly vulnerable to CVC. Naurangabad village of Sirmaur district have lowest score (0.70±0.03) of ACI among the entire selected village. To cope up the adverse climatic conditions and for the sustenance of dairy farming in the study area, the appropriate climate resilient policies will be required for incentivizing the livelihoods infrastructure, promotion of grass root level innovations and to increase AC of tribal dairy farmers by using locally available resources.