IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v10y2021i11p1236-d677803.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Farmers’ Distress Index: An Approach for an Action Plan to Reduce Vulnerability in the Drylands of India

Author

Listed:
  • A. Amarender Reddy

    (ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (ICAR-CRIDA), Hyderabad 500059, India)

  • Anindita Bhattacharya

    (National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD & PR), Hyderabad 500030, India)

  • S. Venku Reddy

    (Participatory Rural Development Society (PRDIS), Hyderabad 500048, India)

  • Sandra Ricart

    (Water and Territory Research Group, Interuniversity Institute of Geography, University of Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Spain)

Abstract

Farmer distress is a widely recognized problem in India induced by multiple causes ranging from climate variability to price volatility and the low risk-bearing ability of farmers. Tracking farmers’ distress in a localized context is a prerequisite for timely action to provide sustainable livelihood options. Therefore, a field survey was conducted with 640 dryland farmers of 10 sub-district units from two states in India with the aim to identify the major indicators based on seven dimensions of distress and to construct a multidimensional Farmers’ Distress Index (FDI) at the farmer and sub-district levels. The FDI was built with seven dimensions of distress: exposure to risk, adaptive capacity, sensitivity, mitigation and adaptation strategies, triggers, psychological factors, and impacts. The study developed a broad-based FDI which can be used as a planning tool that can address the causes of farmers’ distress and also evolve measures to tackle those causes. Based on the result, the study recommends a location-specific distress management package based on various dimensions of the FDI. The paper also suggests an upscaling strategy to identify and prioritize the highly distressed farmers as well as sub-district geographical units by tracking a few sets of variables.

Suggested Citation

  • A. Amarender Reddy & Anindita Bhattacharya & S. Venku Reddy & Sandra Ricart, 2021. "Farmers’ Distress Index: An Approach for an Action Plan to Reduce Vulnerability in the Drylands of India," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-24, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:11:p:1236-:d:677803
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/11/1236/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/11/1236/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leonie Guerrero Lara & Laura M. Pereira & Federica Ravera & Amanda Jiménez-Aceituno, 2019. "Flipping the Tortilla : Social-Ecological Innovations and Traditional Ecological Knowledge for More Sustainable Agri-Food Systems in Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-21, February.
    2. Frank Ellis, 2000. "The Determinants of Rural Livelihood Diversification in Developing Countries," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 289-302, May.
    3. Komali Kantamaneni & Louis Rice & Komali Yenneti & Luiza C. Campos, 2020. "Assessing the Vulnerability of Agriculture Systems to Climate Change in Coastal Areas: A Novel Index," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-24, June.
    4. Gallai, Nicola & Salles, Jean-Michel & Settele, Josef & Vaissière, Bernard E., 2009. "Economic valuation of the vulnerability of world agriculture confronted with pollinator decline," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 810-821, January.
    5. Manuel Fernando Castro, 2011. "Defining and Using Performance Indicators and Targets in Government M and E Systems," World Bank Publications - Reports 11061, The World Bank Group.
    6. Valentina Cattivelli & Vincenzo Rusciano, 2020. "Social Innovation and Food Provisioning during Covid-19: The Case of Urban–Rural Initiatives in the Province of Naples," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-15, May.
    7. Salvatore Greco & Alessio Ishizaka & Menelaos Tasiou & Gianpiero Torrisi, 2019. "On the Methodological Framework of Composite Indices: A Review of the Issues of Weighting, Aggregation, and Robustness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 61-94, January.
    8. Gordon, Line J. & Finlayson, C. Max & Falkenmark, Malin, 2010. "Managing water in agriculture for food production and other ecosystem services," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(4), pages 512-519, April.
    9. repec:idb:brikps:71438 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Rajiv Pandey & ShashidharKumar Jha, 2012. "Climate vulnerability index - measure of climate change vulnerability to communities: a case of rural Lower Himalaya, India," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 487-506, June.
    11. Gatto, Andrea & Drago, Carlo, 2020. "A taxonomy of energy resilience," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    12. Vincenzo Rusciano & Gennaro Civero & Debora Scarpato, 2020. "Social and Ecological High Influential Factors in Community Gardens Innovation: An Empirical Survey in Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-16, June.
    13. Andrea Gatto, 2020. "A pluralistic approach to economic and business sustainability: A critical meta‐synthesis of foundations, metrics, and evidence of human and local development," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1525-1539, July.
    14. Andrea Gatto, 2018. "Historical Roots of Microcredit and Usury: The Role of Monti di Pietà in Italy and in the Kingdom of Naples in XV–XX Centuries," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 911-914, July.
    15. Archana Raghavan Sathyan & Christoph Funk & Thomas Aenis & Lutz Breuer, 2018. "Climate Vulnerability in Rainfed Farming: Analysis from Indian Watersheds," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-27, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yue Sun & Yanhui Wang & Chong Huang & Renhua Tan & Junhao Cai, 2023. "Measuring farmers’ sustainable livelihood resilience in the context of poverty alleviation: a case study from Fugong County, China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, December.
    2. Srijita Ghosh & Kausik Gupta, 2023. "Dynamic Analysis of Watershed Management and Sustainable Agriculture in Dryland Regions: A Case Study of Purulia District, West Bengal," Review of Development and Change, , vol. 28(2), pages 207-244, December.
    3. A. Amarender Reddy & Meghana Reddy & Vartika Mathur, 2024. "Pesticide Use, Regulation, and Policies in Indian Agriculture," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-28, September.
    4. Liang Luo & Qi Nie & Yingying Jiang & Feng Luo & Jie Wei & Yong Cui, 2024. "Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Spatial Spillover Effects of Resilience in China’s Agricultural Economy," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-24, September.
    5. Abiodun A. Ogundeji, 2022. "Adaptation to Climate Change and Impact on Smallholder Farmers’ Food Security in South Africa," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-16, April.
    6. Diego León Peña-Orozco & María Eugenia Londoño-Escobar & Andrés Mauricio Paredes Rodríguez & Jesús Gonzalez-Feliu & Gonzalo Navarrete Meneses, 2023. "Prioritizing Public Policy Implementation for Rural Development in a Developing Country via Multicriteria Classification," Economies, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-25, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shuxin Mao & Sha Qiu & Tao Li & Mingfang Tang, 2020. "Rural Households’ Livelihood Strategy Choice and Livelihood Diversity of Main Ethnic Minorities in Chongqing, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-15, October.
    2. Gatto, Andrea & Drago, Carlo, 2020. "Measuring and modeling energy resilience," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    3. Mariarosaria Lombardi & Marco Costantino, 2020. "A Social Innovation Model for Reducing Food Waste: The Case Study of an Italian Non-Profit Organization," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-16, July.
    4. Carlo Drago & Andrea Gatto, 2022. "An interval‐valued composite indicator for energy efficiency and green entrepreneurship," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5), pages 2107-2126, July.
    5. Agnieszka Kozera & Aldona Standar & Łukasz Satoła, 2020. "Managing Rural Areas in the Context of the Growing Debt of Polish Local Government Units," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-25, August.
    6. Debora Scarpato & Gennaro Civero & Vincenzo Rusciano & Marcello Risitano, 2020. "Sustainable strategies and corporate social responsibility in the Italian fisheries companies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(6), pages 2983-2990, November.
    7. Smith, Helen F. & Sullivan, Caroline A., 2014. "Ecosystem services within agricultural landscapes—Farmers' perceptions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 72-80.
    8. Pilar Murias & Beatriz Valcárcel-Aguiar & Rosa María Regueiro-Ferreira, 2020. "A Territorial Estimate for Household Energy Vulnerability: An Application for Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-21, July.
    9. Monika Małgorzata Wojcieszak-Zbierska & Anna Jęczmyk & Jan Zawadka & Jarosław Uglis, 2020. "Agritourism in the Era of the Coronavirus (COVID-19): A Rapid Assessment from Poland," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-19, September.
    10. Aleksander Grzelak, 2020. "The Objectives of Farm Operations—Evidence from a Region in Poland," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-20, October.
    11. Drago, Carlo & Gatto, Andrea & Ruggeri, Matteo, 2023. "Telemedicine as technoinnovation to tackle COVID-19: A bibliometric analysis," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    12. Xue Yang & Shili Guo & Xin Deng & Wei Wang & Dingde Xu, 2021. "Study on Livelihood Vulnerability and Adaptation Strategies of Farmers in Areas Threatened by Different Disaster Types under Climate Change," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-21, November.
    13. Gennaro Civero & Vincenzo Rusciano & Debora Scarpato & Mariarosaria Simeone, 2021. "Food: Not Only Safety, but Also Sustainability. The Emerging Trend of New Social Consumers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-15, November.
    14. Sadik-Zada, Elkhan Richard & Gatto, Andrea, 2021. "The puzzle of greenhouse gas footprints of oil abundance," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    15. Gianluigi Cisco & Andrea Gatto, 2021. "Climate Justice in an Intergenerational Sustainability Framework: A Stochastic OLG Model," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-13, April.
    16. Chiang, Chang-Tang, 2024. "A systematic literature network analysis of green information technology for sustainability: Toward smart and sustainable livelihoods," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    17. Andrea Gatto, 2020. "A pluralistic approach to economic and business sustainability: A critical meta‐synthesis of foundations, metrics, and evidence of human and local development," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1525-1539, July.
    18. Reddy, A Amarender & Bhattacharya, Anindita & Reddy, Venku, 2021. "Significance of Farmers’ Distress Index in Reducing Agrarian Crisis: An Approach to Study Vulnerability in the Context of Dryland Farmers in India," EconStor Preprints 273421, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    19. Angeliki Kavga & Vasileios Thomopoulos & Pantelis Barouchas & Nikolaos Stefanakis & Aglaia Liopa-Tsakalidi, 2021. "Research on Innovative Training on Smart Greenhouse Technologies for Economic and Environmental Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-22, September.
    20. Andrzej Rosner & Monika Wesołowska, 2020. "Deagrarianisation of the Economic Structure and the Evolution of Rural Settlement Patterns in Poland," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-19, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    distress indicators; agrarian risks; resilience measure; distress management; India; intervention;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q14 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Finance
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • Q17 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agriculture in International Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:11:p:1236-:d:677803. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.