Farmer's perception and adaptation practices to cope with drought: Perspectives from Northwestern Bangladesh

This study was conducted with 718 farmers of owner, owner-cum-tenant and tenant farmers of irrigated and non-irrigated villages at 14 upazila (sub-district) in two severe drought-prone districts of northwestern Bangladesh through a semi-structured questionnaire. It assessed farmer's perception and awareness, impacts and adaptation measures of farmers towards drought. The results revealed that farmers in both areas perceived a changed climate in recent years. They not only identified that drought is the most prevalent disaster in the study area because of rainfall and temperature variation, but also groundwater depletion, lack of canal and river dragging, increased population, deforestation, etc. accelerate drought in this area. As a consequence of drought, agriculture as well as farmers' social life and health are threatened the most. To cope with drought, farmers have been adapting various practices mainly through agronomic management, crop intensification, water resource exploitation, etc. Among different farmer groups in both irrigated and non-irrigated areas, it has been seen that owner farmers have more capacity to adopt new technology than owner-cum-tenant and tenant farmer. In conclusion, this study recommended that interrelationship among different stakeholders, effective early warning system and improved water conservation systems are essential to sustain farmers livelihood in the event of drought. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.