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Crop Diversification: An Adaptive Option for Climate Change Resilience in West Bengal

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Climate Change, Agriculture and Society

Abstract

Climate change can have negative consequences for agricultural production resulting in increased vulnerability to agricultural systems. Crop diversification can improve resilience in agriculture through a variety of ways to suppress pest outbreaks and reduce pathogen transmission, by buffering crop production from the effects of future climate scenarios, as well as greater climate variability and extreme events. Such gains point to the clear value of adopting crop diversification to improve resilience, yet adoption of crop diversification has been seen slow. This paper examines the diversity of crop (HI) in context of climate change and vulnerability (IPCC) in a coastal state West Bengal of India. The study utilizes 16 selected variables obtained from secondary sources and estimates the climate vulnerability indices amongst all districts using exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity of IPCC (Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 2007) method. The region of crop diversification (HI) was developed to detect diverse agricultural impacts. The districts have been ranked on the basis of IPCC vulnerability index where low rank number shows the most vulnerable district and high rank number indicates lowest vulnerability district. The vulnerability is varying from 0.0148 highest vulnerability in South 24 Parganas district with rank 1, 0.0022 lowest vulnerability in Howrah district with rank 18. District Howrah recorded for highest crop diversification (0.001) and lowest vulnerability (0.0022). It has been found that most vulnerable districts have medium crop diversification while low vulnerable districts reported for high cop diversification which indicates that crop diversification can be increased to reduce the vulnerability. Some districts in West Bengal have been cited as effective traditional systems of farming, lack of technology, average holding size and low diversification of per capita income. The expansion of crop diversification depends on improvement in production risk through technical assistance, quality input supply, insurance cover and the existence of modern storage-processing centres in the region. It is found that agricultural sector is gradually moving towards higher value crops in agro-climatic zone of West Bengal and its districts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Aliah University, Kolkata, India

    Rukhsana

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  1. Rukhsana
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Serampore Girls’ College, Serampore, West Bengal, India

    Asraful Alam

  2. Department of Geography, Aliah University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Rukhsana

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Rukhsana (2023). Crop Diversification: An Adaptive Option for Climate Change Resilience in West Bengal. In: Alam, A., Rukhsana (eds) Climate Change, Agriculture and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28251-5_10

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