Resilience of agriculture reducing vulnerability to climate change in West Bengal

Abstract

The issue of climate change and its impact on agriculture as well as mitigation through developing resiliency is of prime importance in present and future years. To depict the district-wise agricultural scenario in West Bengal, a composite agricultural scenario index (ASI) was constructed for each of the 11 years starting from 2001-02 to 2011-12, considering 11 parameters. Higher the ASI value, better the resiliency showed by a district in a calamity year as compared to other districts suffered the same event; Accordingly, agricultural scenario of six north Bengal districts and five south Bengal districts suffered most in 2006-07 and 2007-08, respectively as evident from lowest ASI values for those years when flood occurred. Districts in western region of the state suffered mostly from the drought during 2010- 11 as indicated by lowest ASI value. Resilience of agriculture not only depends on sustenance of parameters related to agriculture that is presented through ASI but also on the socio-economic vulnerability and climatic vulnerability; therefore, both socio-economic index (SEI) and climatic vulnerability index (CVI) were worked out. Considering ASI, SEI and CVI together, three districts viz. South 24 Parganas, Cooch Behar and Purulia are found most vulnerable to climate change in West Bengal. Future efforts for climate smart agriculture need to be directed to less resilient regions for reducing vulnerability of farming livelihood to climate change.