Vulnerability of dairy based livelihoods to climate variability and change-A study of Western Ghat Region-Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India

This study examines vulnerability of dairy based livelihoods to climate change applying index based approach underlying the principles of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), using 28 indicators to construct an overall Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) to climate change, an important step in evolving appropriate adaptation strategies to climate change. Detailed house hold level data of dairy based livelihoods of Ratnagiri region of Western Ghats were collected through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and personal interviews from 180 randomly selected farmers of three talukas of Ratnagiri district complemented by thirty years of gridded weather data and other secondary data sources. The analysis revealed that the dairy farmers of Lanja taluka were most vulnerable among those of Ratnagiri district. The index score of dairy based livelihoods of Lanja taluka was negative with overall value-4.17 with 48% farmers having high level of vulnerability.