Research and design of a Farmer Resilience Index in coastal farming communities of Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

Climate disasters have a high impact on farming communities in terms of crop loss or reduced income. In the context of disasters, resilience is defined as the capacity to absorb its impacts, bounce back and even improve their previous status. The recent past two disasters namely Cyclone Thane (2011) and the South Indian floods (2015) had caused major crop loss in Cuddalore, India. A Farmer Resilience Index (FRI) has been assessed at the household level using primary data from 93 households (total) in Silambimangalam and Chinnakomatti villages in Cuddalore, with respect to the 2011 and 2015 disasters. The index has 18 parameters and 55 variables under four dimensions, namely, economic, social, technical, and physical. Farmers in both villages have average resilience to precipitation extremes, with FRI of 0.61 and 0.54, respectively. Seventy percent of the total samples are marginal farmers who have the lowest FRI of 0.47 and 4.3% are medium farmers having FRI of 0.83. Marginal farmers are poor and typically belong to lower castes with their farmlands located at lower elevations, which diminish their physical and economic resilience. The outcomes of the index reveal the current adaptive capacities of the farmers and have the potential to support future planning decisions. HIGHLIGHTS Resilience assessment is needed to improve adaptive capacities for future climate disasters.; Farmer Resilience Index (FRI) has been used to assess resilience.; Communities on the coast have better resilience and may be attributed to a reaction to a disaster experience.; Large farmers have improved resilience and reduced risk of income loss from a climate disaster.; The FRI has revealed the efforts taken by the farmers to address the impacts of a precipitation disaster.;

Keywords

• climate resilience
• current adaptive capacities
• economic resilience
• farmer resilience index
• marginal farmers
• precipitation extremes