Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Exploring the relationship between local institutions in SAT India and adaptation to climate variability

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Natural Hazards Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between local institutions and adaptation to climate variability in four semi-arid villages in India. Based on a qualitative survey, it draws attention to the constraints that farming households face, the role of institutions, and the implications for their capacities to adapt. Using an institutional framework, the study examines the role of local institutions in facilitating community adaptation to perceived climate variability. It was found that at the institutional and community level farmers rely on government schemes that provide social safety nets and the private sector such as moneylenders as sources of adaptation options regarding access to credit. Serious constraints emerged, however, in terms of adaptation to what may be a more challenging future. These constraints were further explored by means of grounded theory. The lack of collective feeling and action has hindered bargaining for better market prices and the development of alternate livelihood options. The need for better financial inclusion and access to more formal systems of finance is necessary to increase the overall adaptive capacity of households. During crisis situations or climatic shocks, the absence of these systems means the sale of household assets and resources especially among small and landless groups of farmers. Overall, rural households perceive that public, civic, and private institutions play a significant role in shielding them against the adverse effects of climate variability. The perceived importance of different institutions is, however, different across different categories of farmers, women, and labourers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Where capabilities according to Sen and Nussbaum are defined as freedoms and functionings, the freedoms come in the form of freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security. Functionings on the other hand include working, resting, being literate, being healthy, being part of a community, being respected, and so forth (Nussbaum 2000; Sen,2009; Sen 1992).

  2. The perception of the farmers seemed quite accurate as this information was confirmed by the first-generation ICRISAT resident investigators. In addition, the climatic data obtained from the district level concurred with the description of the years of extreme events by the farmers.

  3. In 2009, farmers in Kanzara lost about 70 % of Kharif crops, the worst sufferers being the farmers without irrigation. There was little or no production of the subsequent Rabi crops, which also meant loss of work for the labourers.

  4. In Aurepalle, open wells were reported to be completely dry as were 75 % of bore wells. In Shirapur, farmers had to dig bore wells up to 400 feet deep to get water compared with 10 years ago when water was available at 100 feet.

  5. Mealybug pest, and a disease identified as Karbya Rog on soya bean in Kanzara, in the last five or six years; a new kind of pest on BT cotton and castor in Dokur.

  6. Where bad year is defined as a year where the rains are not up to the expectations of the farmers in terms of onset, quantity and distribution; there is poorer crop production than expected; there are floods; water shortage either for agriculture or for drinking or both; labourers find it hard to get farming work inside the village.

  7. Started as an NGO in 1998, SKS is a for-profit NBFC (non-banking financial corporation) regulated by the RBI. SKS uses the group lending model whereby poor women guarantee each other’s loans.

  8. The loans are from $ 200 to $800 with a weekly repayment of $ 4.5 over a maximum of 50 weeks.

  9. Aims at enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing a hundred days of waged employment in any one financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

  10. An Indian food security system that distributes subsidised food and non-food items to India's poor through a network of public distribution shops (PDS) established in several states across the country.

  11. Anganwadis are defined as play schools for children aged from two to five.

  12. Zilla Parishad is a local government body at the district level in India. It looks after the administration of the rural area of the district and its office is located at the district headquarters. The Hindi word Parishad means Council and Zilla Parishad translates as District Council.

  13. There is a milk co-operative which is about 5 km away from the village. The milk is sold to the nearby hotels for Rs. 15/- to Rs. 12/- per litre depending on the fat content. The quality of milk is measured by its fat content. The villagers sell the milk directly even to those traders who come from the cities.

  14. Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) is a project of Indian Council for Agricultural Research for testing and transfer of Agricultural technologies to bridge the gap between production and productivity and to increase self-employment opportunities among the farming communities. The trainings offered here follow the principles of “Learning by doing” and “seeing is believing”. As per the mandate of the ICAR, KVKs are supposed to be present in every state and every block in India and in close proximity to villages in the particular block. The translation of the same would be Farmer Science and Training Centers.

  15. Where climatic shock is defined as extreme events such as a drought or a flood.

  16. On the one hand, medium and large farmers feel that the government is favouring small farmers and the landless, but this is ok from a pro-poor perspective; on the other hand, some preferences based on political parties. For instance in Kanzara, the local and the state ruling parties are different, and this is perceived to hamper co-ordination in service provision.

  17. There is a toll free number issued by the Department of Agriculture India, 1800-180-1551 to enable farmers to access Kisan Call Centers (KCC) through landline and mobile network of both public and private telephone service providing agencies. KCC is functioning since January 2004. Kisan is the local term used for Farmers.

References

  • Adger WN (2000) Institutional adaptation to environmental risk under the transition in Vietnam. Ann As Am Geogr 90(4):738–758

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adger WN (2003) Social capital, collective action and adaptation to climate change. Econ Geogr 79:4

    Google Scholar 

  • Adger Neil W, Paavola J (2002) Justice and adaptation to climate change. Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research working paper 23

  • Adger W, Neil BrownK, Fairbrass J, Jordan A, Paavola J, Rosendo S, Seyfang G (2003) Governance for sustainability: towards a `thick’ analysis of environmental decision making. Environ Plan 35:1095–1110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adger NW, Nigel AW, Tompkins LE (2005a) Successful adaptation to climate change across scales. Global Environ Change Human Policy Dimens 15:77–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adger WN, Brown K, Tompkins E (2005b) The political economy of cross-scale networks in resource co-management. Ecol Soc 2:9

    Google Scholar 

  • Agrawal A (2008) The role of local institutions in adaptation to climate change. Paper prepared for the social dimensions of climate change, Social Development Department, The World Bank, Washington DC

  • Bantilan MCS, KV Anupama (2006) Vulnerability and adaptation in dryland agriculture in India’s SAT: experiences from ICRISAT’s village level studies. SAT e-journal, 2(1)

  • Bantilan MCS, Anand Babu P, Anupama GV, Deepthi H, Padmaja R (2006) Dryland agriculture: dynamics, challenges and priorities. Research Bulletin no. 20, global theme on institutions, markets, policy and impacts, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru-502 324, Andhra Pradesh

  • Barnett J (2009) Justice and adaptation to climate change. In: Jeremy M (ed) Climate change and social justice. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, pp 131–144

    Google Scholar 

  • Binswanger HP, Rosenzweig MR (1986) Behavioural and material determinants of production relations in agriculture. J Dev Stud 22(3):503–539

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blaikie P, Brown K, Stocking M, Tang L, Dixod P, Sillitoeb P (1997) Knowledge in action: local knowledge as a development resource and barriers to its incorporation in natural resource research and development. Agric Syst 55(2):217–237

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks N (2003) Vulnerability, risk and adaptation: a conceptual framework. Working paper 38 Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research

  • Charmaz K (1991) The grounded theory method: an explication and interpretation. In: Emerson RM (ed) Contemporary field Research: a collection of readings. Little Brown and Company, Boston, pp 109–128

    Google Scholar 

  • Chiappero ME (2008) Complexity and vagueness in the capability approach: strengths or weaknesses’. In: Alkire S, Comim F, Qizilibash M (eds) The capability approach: concepts, applications and measurement. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Dar WD, Bantilan MCS, Anand Babu P, Anupama KV, Deepthi H, Padmaja R (2007) Dryland agriculture in Asia: ideas, paradigms, and policies in reasserting the rural development agenda: lessons learned and emerging challenges in Asia. In: Balisacan AM, Fuwa N (eds) Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA). Laguna, Philippines and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Pasir Panjang

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas M, Wildavsky A (1983) Risk and culture: an essay on the selection of technological and environmental dangers. University of California Press, California

    Google Scholar 

  • Emerson RM, Fretz RI, Shaw L (1995) Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago University Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards VM, Steins NA (1999) A framework for analysing contextual factors in common pool resource research. J Environ Policy Plan 1(3):205–221

    Google Scholar 

  • Gadgil M, Berkes F, Folke C (1993) Indigenous knowledge for biodiversity conservation. Ambio, 22(15): l–l 56

  • Goulden M (2005) Adaptation to climate variability in East African lakes and wetlands: the role of social capital in promoting resilience. An international workshop on human security and climate change. Asker, Oslo, unpublished conference paper.http://www.cicero.uio.no/humsec/papers/Goulden.pdf. Accessed 1 Jan 2012

  • Gumbo D (2006) Working together to respond to climate change. Zimbabwe Country case study on domestic policy frameworks for adaptation in the water sector

  • Jodha NS (1991) Drought management: farmers’ strategies and their policy implications. Econ Polit Weekly (Q Rev Agric) 26(39): A-98–A. 104

  • Jordan A, O’Riordan T (1995) Institutional adaptation to global environmental change: core elements of an ‘Institutional’ theory by CSERGE: working paper GEC 95–21

  • Kelkar U, Narula KK, Sharma VP, Chandna U (2008) Vulnerability and adaptation to climate variability and water stress in Uttarakhand State, India. Global Environl Change 18:564–574

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kelly PM, Adger WN (1999) Assessing vulnerability to climate change and facilitating adaptation. CSERGE working paper GEC 99-07. Centre for Social & Economic Research on the Global Environment, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

  • Liverani A (2009) Climate change and individual behaviour: considerations for policy. policy research working paper 5058 background paper to the 2010 World Development Report

  • Mehta L, Leach M, Newell P, Scoones I, Sivaramakrishnan K, Way S (1999) Exploring understandings of institutions and uncertainty: new directions in natural resource management, IDS. Discussion paper 372, IDS, Brighton

  • Mertz O, Mbow C, Reenberg A, Diouf A (2009) Farmers’ perceptions of climate change and agricultural adaptation strategies in rural Sahel. Environmental Management, 43(5): 804–816. Springer, New York. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18810526

  • Nelson DR, Adger WN, Brown K (2007) Adaptation to environmental change: contributions of a resilience framework. Annual Rev of Environ Resour 32:395–419

    Google Scholar 

  • North DC (1994) Economic performance through time. Nobel prize lecture, December 19, 1993. Also published in The American Economic Review, 84(3): 359–368, p. 360

  • Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state and Utopia. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum MC (2000) Women and human development: the capabilities approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum MC (2003) Capabilities as fundamental entitlements: sen and social justice. Feminist Economics 9(2–3):33–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Osman-Elasha B, Nagmeldin G, Spanger-Siegfried E, Dougherty B, Hanafi A, Zakieldeen S, Sanjak A, Atti H A, Elhassa H M (2006) Adaptation strategies to increase human resilience against climate variability and change: lessons from arid regions of Sudan. AIACC working paper No. 42

  • Ostrom E (2000) Collective action and the evolution of social norms. J Econ Perspect 14(3):137–158

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parthasarathy D (2009) Social and environmental insecurities in Mumbai: towards a sociological perspective on vulnerability. South Afr Rev Sociol 40:1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Picchio A (ed) (2003) Unpaid work and the economy: a gender analysis of the standards of living. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Raabe K, Birner R, Sekher M, Gayathridevi KG, Amrita S, Schiffer E (2010) How to overcome the governance challenges of implementing NREGA. IFPRI discussion papers 963, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

  • Rao KPC, Kumara CD (2007) Changes in agriculture and village economies. Research bulletin no. 21. Patancheru 502 324, Andhra Pradesh, India: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. ISBN 978-92-9066-507-6. Order code RBE 021

  • Rao GDN, Anand Babu P, Bantilan MCS (2009) Dynamics and development pathways in the semi—arid tropics: Dokur Village profile. Research bulletin no. 23 International Crop Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics

  • Robeyns I (2003) Sen’s capability approach and gender inequality: selecting relevant capabilities. Fem Econ 9(2–3):61–92

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robeyns I (2005) The capability approach and welfare policies. Paper presented at a conference on Gender Auditing and Gender Budgeting Bologna Italy

  • Sen AK (1992) Inequality re-examined. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen A (2009) The idea of justice, Allen Lane an imprint of Penguin Books, pp 225–291

  • Sharma U, Patwardhan A, Parthasarathy D (2009) Assessing adaptive capacity to tropical cyclones in the East coast of India: a pilot study of public response to cyclone warning information. Climate Change, 94(1–2): 189–209(21) (Springer Science)

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith JB (1996) Development of adaptation measures for water resources. Water Res Devel 12:151–163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strauss A, Corbin J (1998). Basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, Sage, CA

  • Strauss LA, Glaser GB (1967) Discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research. Hawthorn, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas D, Osbahr H, Twyman C, Adger N, Hewitson B (2005) Adaptations to climate change amongst natural resource-dependant societies in the developing world: across the Southern African climate gradient. Technical report 35, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

  • UNFCC Technical Issues (1997) Adaptation technologies technical paper

  • Walker ST, Ryan GJ (1990) Village and household economies in India’s semi-arid tropics. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD

    Google Scholar 

  • Woolcock M, Narayan D (2000) Social capital: implications for development theory, research, and policy. World Bank Res Obs 15(2):225–249

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for providing financial resources to support this study. We are grateful to Senior Scientific Officers VK Chopde and Mohan Rao Yelamarthi and Resident Field Investigators N Rama Krishna, Vishwambhar Duche, Anand B Dhumale, and K Ramana Reddy for their full-time assistance in the villages of Shirapur, Kanzara, Dokur and Aurepalle.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Programme On Markets, Institutions and Policies, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, India

    Rupsha Banerjee, Josey Kamanda, Cynthia Bantilan & Naveen P. Singh

Authors
  1. Rupsha Banerjee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Josey Kamanda
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Cynthia Bantilan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Naveen P. Singh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rupsha Banerjee.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Banerjee, R., Kamanda, J., Bantilan, C. et al. Exploring the relationship between local institutions in SAT India and adaptation to climate variability. Nat Hazards 65, 1443–1464 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-012-0417-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-012-0417-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation