An Assessment of Farm Households' Vulnerability to Climate Change in Samastipur, Bihar (India)

Abstract

Bihar's agrarian economy is at risk from climate change due to persistent droughts, floods, irregular rainfall, etc. The present study was conducted between 2023 and 2024 in the Samastipur district of Bihar in order to analyze the socio-economic vulnerability of farm households. Two blocks of Samastipur were randomly selected, and clusters of villages within each block were selected randomly. From each cluster, 20-20 respondents were selected randomly from all three categories of farmers, i.e. cropping only, cropping + livestock and cropping + livestock + others. The total number of farm households was 120. Socio-economic status was determined using frequency and percentage methods. The IPCC approach was used to calculate the socioeconomic vulnerability index. The majority of farmers belong to the middle age group, have a medium family income, and own marginal amounts of land. There are 66.67% of farms in the moderate vulnerability group (0.147-0.345) followed by 16.67% in the low vulnerability group (0.147-0.345) and 16.67% in the high vulnerability group (>0.345). According to the study, policy efforts can be made to improve the socio-economic status of farm households by understanding the importance of closely related variables affecting climate change vulnerability.