Integrated farming as an adaptation strategy to climate change and variability in frequently drought prone regions of Southern India

Though integrated farming is believed as an adaptation strategy to climate change and variability, information about the extent of adaptation benefits due to drought remains limited. In rainfed production systems, small and marginal farmers are vulnerable due to frequent droughts leading to crop failures, low farm productivity aggravating hunger and poverty. Identification and effective integration of multiple adaptation strategies at the farm play an important role in improving resilience, particularly in agroecosystems exposed to a high frequency and intensity of climatic shocks such as droughts. In this study, we propose a framework to strengthen the existing rainfed farming systems by characterizing them, prioritizing the constraints and resilient strategies and assessed their impact. Data was collected from 240 farm households (HHs) and characterized, 24 farmers (12 small and 12 marginal farmers) were selected for on-farm assessment under rainfed and partially irrigated (PI) situations. Prioritized interventions were implemented in four predominant farming systems and assessed their contribution to resilience. Diversified farming systems with drought-tolerant and high yielding varieties, intercropping systems, conservation furrows, improved fodder varieties and livestock feed additives, enhanced the system productivity by 77 and 29% of small farmers under rainfed and partially irrigated situations, respectively. Resilience gain in rainfed small and marginal farmers was 65 and 40%, respectively, indicating that the extent of yield improvement was 65 and 40% due to the adoption of interventions during the drought year than that of farmers' practice during the normal year. Sustainable yield index improved from 0.44 to 0.74 with adoption of interventions, indicating that the minimum guaranteed yield as a percentage of the maximum observed yield across the years. The results underscore the need to prioritize context-specific and promising adaptation strategies to strengthen the resilience of integrated farming systems in vulnerable regions.