Abstract
Climate change in the form of increased climatic variability at intra- and inter-annual and decadal time scales is the most talked problem that we are hearing today particularly in agricultural production. This study examines how farmers in the Bundelkhand of India perceive climatic change and an attempt has been made to analyze the temporal changes in agro ecology in terms of crops, cropping pattern, their productivity, animal population, irrigation systems, available water resources, vegetation cover, etc. over last 5-6 decades with reference to prevailing climate. This research used a “bottom-up” approach, which seeks to gain insights from the farmers themselves through household surveys, group interviews with key informants and following an open-ended approach when asking questions. The accuracy of the perceptions in deviations observed in the idealized local weather cycle was measured by analyzing the climatic data from 1975–2007 obtained from the nearest observatory. The communities at study area are highly aware of changes in climate and see a strong change in the ideal local weather calendar in terms of rainfall, rainy days, winter rains, droughts, temperature and wind. Further, they perceived a definite change in agro ecology of the region and see climate, though not sole, but an important cause of it.
Keywords