Nimisha Agarwal, a Ph. D scholar from the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, made a presentation on the topic “Rice and Wheat Cropping: Adaptation to Climate Change in Different Vulnerability Zones” on April 26, 2016, at the FAS office.

The speaker introduced the concept of vulnerability as applied to agriculture, and the way the concept has been operationalised in the literature on vulnerability indices. Using evidence from the ground, the presentation challenged the vulnerability approach for ignoring inequalities within a district and within a village.

The author conducted surveys in four villages from four districts (Meerut, Kanpur, Banda and Pratapgarh) of Uttar Pradesh. The districts were chosen so as to represent different agro-climatic zones. The data from the field survey were used to identify various adaptive strategies employed by farmers to cope with climatic variations such as occurrence of drought and flood.

In the discussion that followed, participants questioned the basis of considering these strategies as a response only to the phenomenon of climate change, given the fact that vulnerabilities in village India, and particularly in agriculture as a system of production, are a complex product of economic factors, technological change and climate fluctuations.