College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam-793103, Meghalaya
Online published on 5 December, 2018.
The difficult terrain, fragile hill ecology, poor infrastructure and resource endowments, and low level of productivity make agriculture vulnerable to climate change in the North-eastern (NE) region of India. The small and marginal land holdings add to the inability to cope up with the climatic stress. There is every possibility that failing to achieve the goal of climate action (Goal 13) may become obstacle in the path of achieving the goal of zero hunger (Goal No 2) that underlie the sustainable development goal envisaged by UNDP. This paper assessed agricultural vulnerability of all eight states in the NE region by constructing a vulnerability index using the secondary data. The three dimensions of vulnerability viz., exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity includes a large number of indicators. Manipur was agriculturally the most vulnerable state due to high exposure to change in climatic factors and lower adaptive capacity, whereas Tripura was the least vulnerable due to higher level of adaptive capacity. About 50% of the states were under medium to highly vulnerable category. Increasing the cropping intensity, irrigation facility, and extending credit to farmers may help the states to cope up with climate changes, thereby decreasing their vulnerability.
