Climate Change, Sustainable Development goals, Rural Women, Climate Action, Zero Hunger and Integrated Farming System.

Climate change means shifting average weather conditions, including measures such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, cloudiness,  wind patterns  and changes in the frequency or severity of these conditions. Climate change is the issue of major concern and has gained momentum in today's scenario. All the visionary planners are taking a serious note regarding this and making  all their efforts while  policy formation to keep this issue on priority. That's why mitigating it through Climate Actions has been kept as 13th Sustainable Development Goal of 2030. Climate change occurs due to various  natural reasons   like volcanic eruptions, fluctuations in solar radiations, small changes in the orbit, tectonic shifts etc. and also due to anthropogenic reasons.  It was believed by the scientists that the influence of  natural causes of climate change  is too slow to explain the causes of rapid warming over the decades. Combustion of fossil fuels for transport, heating, cement production, deforestation, etc leads to increased CO2. Various agricultural activities, waste disposal etc, will increase methane generation in the atmosphere. Natural processes in the soil and nitrogen fertilization application leads to  Nitrogen oxides (N2O) emissions in the  atmosphere (Slave and Man 2012). Green house gas emissions due to human activities may be related to  agricultural or non agricultural  sectors are the major contributors behind climate change. Agricultural sector itself contributes 24 percent of the total anthropogenic factors responsible for Green House Gas emissions  directly  through production linked On-farm emissions and indirectly through land use change as a result of agricultural expansion (IPCC, AR5 to be released). Czyżewski and Kryszak (2018) reported that agricultural practices contribute about 25-30% of GHG emissions. Thus, there's a big dilemma that agriculture is both the victim as well as the contributor towards climate change.

Agriculture depends totally on weather and climatic conditions. Change in climate will affect the groundwater recharge, soil moisture and frequency   of drought or flood, and groundwater level in different areas (Allen et al., 2004). This sector is itself facing a great negative consequences emerged out of climate change like increased infestation causing   varied plant diseases, droughts or floods or variations in seasonal lengths resulting in changing of cropping season and crop failures or delay in fruiting and flowering of crops, etc. Climate change leads to variation  in  the  incidence  and distribution  of pests  and  pathogens causing   decrease in agricultural production due to variation in the patterns of pests and diseases with climate change  (Fan  Zhai  and Juzhong  Zhuang 2012).  A  report of  the (IMF,  2017) founds  that  for  rising  market   economies  a  10 degree celsius  rise  in temperature would decrease agricultural production by 1.7%, and a 100 millimeters decrease in rain would reduce growth by 0.35%. This decreased agricultural productivity poses a great threat towards meeting out the basic needs of human survival. 

In the state of Himachal Pradesh women are the main actors and producers of the food for their families. In lieu of climate change, the time she is going to spend in field gets affected as they have to manage all household resources for their family which may  range from  arranging of water for drinking, cooking  and cleaning  to collecting fuel wood  for cooking food. Since they perform major agricultural activities hence it is important to study that how much these women are aware about climate change along with finding out its impact these are viewing in the crops grown by them and how they are coming up with the solutions to mitigate and adapt to the changing climate. This will help to overcome the threats of feeding a huge population. Thus, this study has been planned with the following objectives

1. To study  farm women's  level of awareness regarding climate change and its causes

2. To study the adverse effect of climate change perceived by the farm women

3. To study the farm women's awareness regarding adaptation strategies followed w.r.t. climate change.

4. To generate awareness among farm women to follow climate resilient agricultural strategies.

The study was conducted in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh which lies in the Northern Himalayan region of India. Data were collected from 100 farmwomen using random sampling technique from four villages of Panchrukhi block of Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. The data was collected using pre structured interview schedule. Focus group discussion method was used too to dig up the detailed information related to climate change. Level of awareness was measured on three points continuums i.e. fully aware, somewhat aware and not aware.  The data thus collected was analyzed using frequency and percentages

Table 1 depicts that 59 percent of the farm women were of middle age group. There were no women who was illiterate. Almost all the women were married. Majority  (85%) of the farm women reported that their main occupation was farming and 73 percent revealed that they do not have any subsidiary occupation. It was found that 46 percent of the farm women exhibit joint family structure  and 61 percent reported that they had medium family size.

Table 1: Distribution of the respondents according to their General background information N = 100.

Table 2: Distribution of respondents according to the level of awareness on indicators on climate change (N = 100).

Extent of awareness of farm women regarding climate change is covered in Table 2. The table exhibits the distribution of respondents according to the level of awareness on indicators on climate change. It was found that majority of the respondents were fully aware about the irregular and erratic rainfall (82%) and increasing temperatures (80%) due to climate change. It was also reported by 73 percent of the respondents that they had observed great changes in the length of cropping seasons as against past which indicates that they are fully aware about this incidence of climate change. Majority of the farm women were fully aware  that climate change is also responsible for hot waves (75%), heavy fog (65%) and  frequent floods (65%). However very few farm women were fully aware about the decline of soil productivity (16%), increase in melting of glaciers (12%) and occurrence of extreme cold waves. The findings thus show that the farm women were fully aware about only those indicators which are directly visible or felt to them.

Bansal et al. (2022) studied the awareness  and knowledge of 100 farm women of Mavli block of Udaipur District and found that 74 per cent respondents were fully aware of occurrence of utmost event like wave, 50-55 per cent of them also knew about irregular and erratic rainfall, change long of season i.e. short winter and long summer days. Nearly one third respondents had somewhat awareness about frequent flood, increase in melting of glacier, decline of soil productivity, changes in water level heavy fog. There have been only 8-34 per cent respondents who didn't have any idea about all the indications.

Table 3: Distribution of respondents according to the level of awareness of causes of climate change N=100.

Distribution of respondents according to the level of awareness of causes of climate change can be seen in Table 3. Data revealed that  approximately half or more than half of the respondents were somewhat aware about the  causes of climate change viz. pollution(69%), deforestation (67.0 %), use of pesticides (63%) increase in number of vehicles (60.00%), overpopulation (52.00%) and burning of fossils and farm waste (50%).  This shows that farm women had partial awareness about the causes of climate change and hence there is need to create awareness and motivate them to mitigate these causes like not to cut forest, tree plantation, limit the use of pesticide, reduce/ avoid burning of fossils and farm waste in order to avoid further aggregation of climate change. 

In a study by  Tewari et al. (2019) on 100 farm women of Uttarakhand  regarding causes of climate change it was found that more than half  of the farm women were partially aware of rapid urbanization (71.00%), pollution (70.00%), use of pesticides (63.00%) and increased number of vehicles (56.00%) as the causative factors behind climate change.

Fig. 1. Distribution of respondents according to the perception of adverse effects of climate change on agriculture. 

Majority of the farm women perceived that climate change has adverse effects on agriculture i.e., insufficient irrigation facilities (89%), increased infestation of pests (85%), decreased production due to climate change (82%), crop failure (77%) and increase in disease incidences (62%). It was also found from the data that 40 percent of the women reported that they think farming is no more a profitable venture (Fig. 1). Crop failure, migration and flooding were also the three major effects of climate change as reported by Raghuvanshi et al. (2017) in a Study of Farmers’ Awareness about Climate Change and Adaptation Practices in India.

Table 4: Distribution of respondents according to the awareness on agricultural adaptation practices for climate change.

Table 4 depicts that somewhat change has been observed w.r.t following agricultural practices in relation to climate change. Majority of the farm women (75%) has switched from monocropping to Integrated Farming system and has changed the planting calendar (74%). However, it was found that   approximately only one-third of the respondents had brought changes in their agricultural practices which included diversification of crop types, and crop varieties, change in use of chemical fertilizers,  change in traditional  irrigation methods and crop rotation methods. Thus, it was inferred from the farm practices followed by farm women in relation to climate change that there is lack of awareness of climate friendly practices and efforts need to be done in this regard. Selvaraju et  al. (2006)  reported  that the main adaptation strategies  practiced by small-scale farmers  were in  the  form of  modification  of agronomic practices and in the choice of crop varieties  that  tolerate  the  new  regime

Extension strategies to generate awareness regarding climate resilient agricultural practices: Regarding following of agricultural practices to adapt to changing climate it has been viewed that gap in technology, its dissemination, lack of resources with farmers, lack of agricultural  inputs etc. are some of the factors that hinder farmers practicing agriculture as per today’s need of climate change. Legesse et al. (2013) conducted a study on farmers’ perceptions and adaptation to climate change in Ethiopia   and analyzed  that  farmers  are  facing various barriers that can make the adaptation strategies  ineffective  at  the  local  level. There  was  limited  financial  capital  (43.8%), limited credit availability (16.9%) and limited skills  to  engage  in  new  income  sources (22.5%).  Lack  of  high  yielding  and  drought resistant  crop  varieties  (15%)  were  also mentioned  as  serious  barriers  to  effective adaptation. Therefore, looking to these lacunas in extension strategies, an effort has been made in the present study to generate awareness regarding climate resilient agricultural practices with a view to achieve three main objectives

— Increased Productivity

— Enhanced resilience

—  Reduced emissions 

FAO (2013) focusses on  Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) that integrates the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social, and environmental) by jointly addressing food security and climate challenges through the development of technical, policy, and investment conditions to achieve sustainable food security in agricultural development.

To meet out these objectives various intervention programmes regarding awareness generation and imparting knowledge were conducted on the following topics:

1. Climate change and its causes

2. Adoption of chemical free farming

3. Moving ahead to Integrated Farming system

4. Application of water conservative methods of irrigation

5. Diversification of crop types

6. Adoption of Climate sensitive agricultural crop varieties.

There is the scope to widen the horizon of the study by covering more districts of the state. The present study is confined to assess the level of awareness of women farmers to climate change in  crop sector only.  Other allied sectors may also be covered for studying the impact of climate change. Attempts may also be made to study the use of various mass media channels by farm women related to adoption of adaptation strategies followed by them w.r.t changing climate for agricultural sustainability as these medias play a great role in awareness generation among people.

 Bindia Dutt and Neena Vyas  (2025). A Study on the  Awareness of Hill Women Farmers   to  Climate  Change   and its Impact on Agriculture. Biological Forum, 17(5): 144-148.