Adaptation Strategies of Farmers in a Drought-Prone Area of Rajshahi District

The study was conducted to determine the nature of adaptation strategies of the farmers in a drought-prone area of Rajshahi district. The locale of the study was drought-prone area of Tanore Upazila under Rajshahi district of Bangladesh. Data were collected from 200 households selected through a proportionate stratified random sampling technique from four villages namely Talopara and Jumerpara of Bhadair union and Kandopur and Dhebostoly of Kalma union under Tanore Upazila and analyzed with help of Microsoft Excel, SPPSS and Brasica program. The specific objectives of the study were to determine the adaptation strategies practiced by the farmers in drought period, to find out the relationship between some characteristics of the farmers and their adaptation strategies in drought prone area, to ascertain the contribution of selected characteristics of the farmers to their adaptation strategies in drought period, to explore factors that influences the farmer’s characteristics in applying adaptation strategies and to explore problems faced by farmers in a drought prone area. Both primary and secondary sources of data were used in the study. Questionnaire and checklists were used in conducting survey and Key Informants Interviews. The selected 19 characteristics of the farmers were considered as the independent variables and their adapted adaptation strategies constituted the dependent variable. Adaptation strategies of the farmers in drought prone area ranged from 20 to 50 against a possible range 16 to 64, with an average of 38.65 and standard deviation 4.391. The highest proportion of the respondents (74 percent) had adapted strategies moderately, 17 percent had adapted strategies strongly, 7 percent had adapted strategies slightly and only 2 percent had not adapted strategies. Education, farm size, drought affected area, household asset, annual family income, savings, water and sanitation, communication exposure, agricultural training received, cosmopoliteness, aspiration, planning orientation, environmental awareness were positive and significant relationship with their adaptation strategies in drought period. Path analysis indicates that the variation on farmers’ adaptation strategies was mainly due to the contributions of five predictors viz. that age, household asset, credit received, agricultural training received, and environmental awareness. Adaptation strategies of the farmers’ model indicate that 38.99 percent of total variation in farmers’ adaptation strategies status has been explained by these predictors. The five relevant characteristics having significant effects improvise their contribution to adaptation status and among those, household assets activities alone contribution explaining 25.1 percent of the variation in practice adaptation strategies during in drought period followed by environmental awareness 3.9 percent, agricultural training received 2.8 percent, credit received 3.7 percent and age 1.6 percent. The major root causes of low adaptation strategies of the farmers in drought prone area were lack of rainfall, rising temperature, lack of moisture, lack of awareness and lack of soil management. Hence, provision of necessary measures by the concerned authority and progressive change in socio-economic-environmental structure of the society are desirable for improvement of the farmers’ adaptation strategies in drought prone area.