Estimation of Perception on Social Vulnerability of Peasants in Flood Prone District of Bihar

Agriculture is the backbone of economy of Bihar, where 76 per cent of the population is engaged in farming occupation. Flood and draught are commonly occurring natural disaster in Bihar, which makes farmers socially as well as economically vulnerable. The present article is an empirical study on the perception on the social vulnerability of farmers in flood prone district of the state of Bihar. The study was conducted in the Dargahiganj village in Baisi block of Purnea district. Face to face survey was conducted with the help of pre-structured interview schedule with 40 farmers. Data collected and analysed statistically applying descriptive statistics, coefficient of correlation and regression with the help of SPSS-23. It has been found that perception on occupation (x₄), agricultural income (x₁₄), irrigation index (x₁₅) and holding size (x₁₇) were positively correlated with the perception on social vulnerability (Y). Whereas, vulnerable members (x₉), information source (x₁₂), cropping intensity (x₁₃) were found to be negatively correlated with the Perception on social vulnerability. It has also been found that causal variables viz. perception on occupation (x₄), vulnerable members (x₉), information source (x₁₂), cropping intensity (x₁₃), agricultural income (x₁₄), irrigation index (x₁₅) and holding size (x₁₇) contributed in causing of perception on social vulnerability (Y) with the value of R² = 0.724 showing that all the causal variables have cumulatively explained 72.4 per cent of variance embedded in the predicted variables perception on social vulnerability (Y). The estimated perception on social vulnerability can assist researcher and scientific community for an appropriate technological intervention like flood tolerant crop varieties for sustainability of agricultural production as well as profitable income from the farm.