Mainstreaming climate adaptation in Indian rural developmental agenda: A micro-macro convergence

Abstract

Vulnerability of agriculture to climate shocks and its consequences on farm livelihoods and food security is well recognized. Mainstreaming climate adaptation into policy landscape is a must for achieving the pathway to sustainable development. The approach envisages grass-root and climate perspectives to bring about developmental interventions for rural poor and small farm holders. Even though macro-level planning is necessary and useful, the coping mechanisms across different socio-economic and agro-climatic settings should be recommended at micro-level especially in developing nations. Responses of resource poor farmers to weather abnormalities are often rendered ineffective on account of several barriers to adaptation. Keeping this in view, we attempted to review the potential strategies adopted by the farmers, with a greater focus on constraints to adaptation in order to feed into the policy options of the Government. The authors articulate that the micro-level inferences from natural resource management, agriculture research and development, infrastructure and human capital across the space should be integral part of the climate adaptation planning. Moreover, the paper demonstrates how the developmental interventions spread across different verticals of the government can mutually address both the rural development and climate adaptation considerations. It is also construed that strengthening the role and capacity of local institutions in assembling grass-root information and in implementation of programmes is crucial for effectively addressing vulnerability to both the climatic and non-climatic factors. In nutshell, the paper aims at assisting development practitioners and policymakers in devising an effective approach towards mainstreaming climate adaptation in the existing rural developmental architecture. Keywords: Climate change, Agriculture, Barriers, Development, Adaptation, Mainstreaming