TY - JOUR AU - Rahul K. Kamble, AU - Kumaresh S. Tikadar, PY - 2021/06/30 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Paddy Cultivating Marginalized Farmers’ Climate Change Perceptions, Impacts and Adaptation Strategies in Chandrapur District, Central India JF - Research Inspiration JA - Research Inspiration VL - 6 IS - III SE - Articles DO - UR - http://www.researchinspiration.com/index.php/ri/article/view/120 SP - 01-13 AB - <p style="text-align: justify;">The study aimed to assess paddy cultivating marginalized farmers’ perceptions of climate change, impacts, and adaptation strategies in Chandrapur district, central India. Purposive sampling was carried out to identify 70 marginalized farmers from the study area in the year 2020. A specially designed and developed questionnaire was used as a tool to elicit the information from the respondent. From the identified sample population, the maximum number of farmers (35.71%) are illiterate and don’t have a cell phone (57.14%). They have borrowed money to carry out agricultural activities from one or other source specifically from moneylenders (84.28%) followed by government banks (37.14%). Climate change perceptions by these farmers are well understood and clear and reported rain pattern change (85.71%) and high/low temperature (74.28%) as an important one. Crop residue burning is considered a major (94.28%) agricultural activity responsible for climate change. Impacts of climate change on agriculture, in general, is in the order of crop growth reduced &gt; production reduction &gt; irrigation water scarcity &gt; soil fertility reduction &gt; poor quality yield &gt; late/no seed germination. Impacts on paddy cultivation, in particular, are increased insect/pest attack, yield quality deterioration, and food production reduced. Quantity of surface water decrease is reported by 87.14% respondent. The cost of insecticide/pesticide used is increased in the range of 21-40% (38.57%). Impacts of climate change on livestock are pronounced and include heatstroke (82.35%), vector-borne diseases (61.76%), production loss (50%), and death due to heatstroke (35.29%). Adaptation strategies are poorly developed with a desire for a better weather forecast (97.14%) and changing cropping patterns (74.28%). Future adaptation strategies involved an emphasis on high-yielding crop varieties, crop diversification, irrigation water use change, water storage methods, etc. The climate change-induced problems faced by these marginalized farmers are well defined and different from other farmer categories and needs a holistic approach to overcome it. Sustainable adaptation strategies emphasize on climate smart agriculture is the need of the hour to pave the way for sustainable agriculture and sustainable livelihood. This may be perhaps the first study with this aim from the region.</p> ER -