Fourteenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Climate change is having adverse effects on Indian agriculture, especially in the state of Bihar. Although the state is one of the more resource-abundant one, its agricultural productivity is among the lowest in the country. Bihar is also extremely vulnerable to climate change. Understanding adaptation to climate change is a pre-requisite for Bihar for moving to climate-resilient agriculture. Most of the existing studies have focused on technology-based planned adaptation, while in reality autonomous adaptation has gained importance to transition agriculture towards sustainability. To bridge this research gap, the paper aims to tease out the role of autonomous adaptation – through twin channels of inherent ability/traditional knowledge and community networks – on agricultural productivity for rice and wheat. A quantitative analysis is done to delineate roles of inherent ability and community networks, while controlling for underlying factors (social, economic, technological, resources’ availability etc.) in agricultural adaptation. We have relied on panel-data analysis of secondary data, spanning 1990-2019 for all 38 districts of Bihar. The role of community networks is captured through an index, based on Principal Component Analysis. To capture the spill-over effects of ability, an unobservable variable, Kalman-Filtering is done that utilizes state-space models. Our research finds that both community networks and inherent ability are helping towards boosting crop yields. However, the two channels together work counter to each in terms of impact on crop yields. Further, traditional knowledge and acquired education engenders a positive reinforcing effect on crop yields, while community networks and acquired education dampen crop yields.