Impact of climate change on pulse productivity and adaptation strategies as practiced by the pulse growers of Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh

The study conducted among 200 pulse growers of Hamirpur district of Budelkhand region in Uttar Pradesh aimed at microlevel analysis of impact of climate change on weather parameters and their consequences on pulse productivity. Related secondary data on temperature and rainfall for the duration 2001–2008 were collected from the official records and primary data related to productivity of selected pulses like chickpea, pigeonpea and lentil were collected from the sampled farmers for the period 2004–08. During the four years, average maximum and average minimum temperature increased on an average of 0.86and2.46ºC, respectivelyfromthe baseline year of 2001–03. Similarly, the average rainfall declined at the absolute rate of 268 mm which was lesser by 31.2% than the normalrainfallduringthe above periodfromthesamebaseline year. On further analysis, it was oberved that with every 0.1ºC increase in maximum and minimum temperature, and temperature differences, the yield of the chickpea (38.49, 13.46 and 12.73 kg/ha), lentil (40.70, 14.22 and 13.46 kg/ha) and pigeonpea (22.86, 9.39 and 2.90 kg/ha) respectively, declined considerably. Results also indicated that there was greater impact of increase in average maximum temperature on yield reduction as compared to increase in minimum temperature and the temperature difference. The consequence of rainfall decline was also studied. On an average, the yield reduction for every 10 mm average annual rainfall drop for the selected pulse crops was found to be 12.35, 13.05 and 8.05 kg/ha for chickpea, lentil and pigeon pea, respectively. Farmers’ perceptions to adapt their cropping system under the changing climatic conditions were documented.