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Global Climate Change Agenda and Processes: Scouting for Traditional Grassroot Adaptation Strategies in Arid and Semi-Arid Agriculture of India. Working Paper Series No. 46

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/7297/
Working Paper Series No. 46
 
Title Global Climate Change Agenda and Processes: Scouting for Traditional Grassroot Adaptation Strategies in Arid and Semi-Arid Agriculture of India. Working Paper Series No. 46
 
Creator Jodha, N S
Singh, N P
Bantilan, M C S
Byjesh, K.
 
Subject Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics
Climate change
 
Description The paper attempts to explore how a global Climate Change agenda and processes (covering
concerns, debates, negotiations, research-based projections, impacts and actions broadly
collectively termed as “global discourse” in this paper), can help enhance the farmers’
adaptations against impacts of climate change in arid and semi-arid regions of India, which is
potentially more vulnerable to climate change.
After a brief introduction to these dryland agricultural regions, the paper looks at the main
thrusts of largely macro level focused global discourse on climate change. This is followed by
a discussion on relevant features of farmers’ traditional adaptation strategies against climatic
variability in the above-mentioned regions captured through longitudinal village level studies by
ICRISAT, and supplemented by other studies focused on farmer responses to weather induced
risks. Based on the above, we look at the extent of match or mismatch between the two to
identify the limitations and potential of the macro-level global discourse on climate change, for
enhancing farmers’ adaptation strategies against the negative impacts of climate change.
Information on mainstream global discourse is picked up from a variety of reviews and critiques
of the specific components of global discourse on climate change. The information on farmers’
adaptation strategies is provided by a number of studies on farmers’ vulnerability and risk
management conducted during the last thirty years in different parts of arid and semi-arid areas
in India.
The important concerns about usability of global discourse relate to highly aggregative and
macro level focused information, projections, modeled scenarios, etc, along with their current
information gaps and uncertainties. Consequently, they do not offer apparent concrete contexts
at micro levels to which dryland farmers respond by way of adaptation measures. Besides, the
global discourse largely focus on mitigation as against adaptation to climate change, which
does not help dryland farmers’ adaptations to climate change. Finally, the farmers’ adaptationresponses
are not directed exclusively to weather induced risks and uncertainties, but they
address the other sources of risks such as market and other calamities. Since the global
discourse on climate change has highly skewed perspectives (reflected by its focus mainly on
climate change with little attention to other linked global changes), it may not offer inspiring
lead lines, even in the perspective sense to dryland farmers to evolve holistic coping strategies
against risks.
Based on the evidence and understanding of farmers’ traditional and present adaptation
strategies against weather variability, the paper attempts to explore some indicative possibilities
to benefit from macro level global discourse on climate change. They include the indicative
approaches to harmonize the elements of traditional adaptation approaches and potential field
oriented (micro level focused) new approaches guided by imperatives of climate change, using
new technological and institutional options. Their involved facilitative interventions, however,
are largely product policy programs initiated and promoted by the governments. In some way,
one of the most significant contributions of global discourse on climate change is generating
information and concerns of policy makers about potential risks created by climate change and
need for promoting measures against them including the above-mentioned interventions, which
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ultimately help in making development steps climate sensitive. However, promotion of such
steps will be greatly facilitated if some downscaling of current global approaches, by way of
focusing on regional and local/landscape situations, is promoted.
 
Publisher International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
 
Date 2013
 
Type Monograph
NonPeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/7297/1/GlobalClimatecHange_Wp_46_2013.pdf
Jodha, N S and Singh, N P and Bantilan, M C S and Byjesh, K. (2013) Global Climate Change Agenda and Processes: Scouting for Traditional Grassroot Adaptation Strategies in Arid and Semi-Arid Agriculture of India. Working Paper Series No. 46. Working Paper. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India.