Sanjit Maiti

Assessment of social vulnerability to climate change in the eastern coast of India

This study highlighted the social vulnerability to climate change of 29 eastern coastal districts across 4 eastern coastal states of India by using the ‘Integrated vulnerability assessment approach’ and IPCC’s definition of vulnerability. The assessment was based on secondary data, like socio-economic and bio-physical indicators, collected from several authenticated sources; and weightage of these indicators were assigned by using Principal Component Analysis. Vulnerability was calculated as the net affect of exposure and sensitivity on the adaptive capacity. Pudukottai district of Tamil Nadu was found to be the most vulnerable district, while East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh was the least vulnerable. The net effect was found to be negative in 10 districts: South 24-Parganas of West Bengal; Bhadrak of Odisha; Prakasam of Andhra Pradesh; Thiruvallur, Villipuram, Thanjavur, Thoothukkudi, Pudukottai, Ramanathapuram and Cuddalore of Tamil Nadu. This net negative effect may be considered as an indicator of alarming situation.

Impact of extension interventions in improving livelihood of dairy farmers of Nadia district of West Bengal, India

Livestock is a one of the major sources of livelihood for most of the small and marginal farmers in India, particularly for rural households who live in below poverty line. Extension interventions have long been seen as a key element for enabling farmers to obtain information and technologies that can improve their livelihoods. It is also recognized that extension is an important factor in promoting dairy development. Ex-post-facto cause to effect research design was applied in this study to trace out the impact of extension interventions in improving knowledge, attitude, adoption towards scientific dairy farming practices and improvement in milk production of dairy animal and income from dairying which will be resulted into improved livelihood of rural poor in Nadia district of West Bengal, India. Therefore, 60 dairy farmers of experimental villages who were considered as beneficiaries and 60 dairy farmers of control villages who were considered as non-beneficiaries were selected as sample for the study. It was found that beneficiaries had significantly higher score in all the five components of livelihood improvement with its all sub components, i.e., knowledge, attitude, adoption of scientific dairy farming practices, milk production per household per day and monthly income from dairying except disease control, and marketing component of adoption. Hence, it may be concluded that extension interventions had a significant impact on improving livelihood of rural dairy farmers in Nadia district of West Bengal, India.

Measuring Attitude of Rural Youth towards Dairying as an Occupation: A Likert Scale

There are two important ways of thinking on the issue of rural youth vis-a-vis farming: Farming as the saviour of rural youth, or rural youth as the saviour of farming. Whatever may be the situation, one thing is quite evident that rural youth and farming are interrelated with each other. According to the latest Census of India (2011), the total population of India is 1.21 billion and 66 per cent of population is up to 35 years of age. Even if 18 to 35 years of age category is considered, 36 per cent population would be covered in it. Demographical distribution of India is very much skewed towards lower age. According to the latest survey of National Sample Survey Organization (2013), 64.1 per cent of rural people are engaged in the agricultural sector. In rural areas, especially among marginal and small farmers, dairying provides a supplementary income opportunity, and many a time, it may be only livelihood option for landless peasants. Livestock sector specifically dairying provides livelihood security. But migratory intention of rural youth towards urban area, had made the basic tenet of studying attitude International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 12 (2017) pp. 3173-3181 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com