Climate Change and Paddy Production in Sri Lanka (with reference to Anuradhapura District)

Abstract

Climate Change is defined as statistically significant variation in either mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer). Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcing or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.The problem of this sudy is there any impact of climate change on paddy production in Sri Lanka. Objectives are to identify the impact of climate change on paddy production in Sri Lanka. It was used both primary and secondary data for this study. The climatic factors are changing very rapidly in Sri Lanka. To adapt farmers with the changes, government and other external agencies are providing several supports, but still there is a gap between farmers’ adaptability with climate change and current level of supports. To analyze the climate change adaptability of the farmers in Sri Lanka, this study uses primary data that have been collected through questionnaire survey on paddy producing farmers in the area of Anuradhapura district, North-Central province. The data have been analyzed by using descriptive statistics, ordered regression, percentile and scale. Farmers significantly believe that buying additional fertilizer from market is not important for their current adaptation capability with climate change. As a consequence, 75.3% of the farmers never used extra fertilizer except the fully subsidized quantity. But, 41.4% farmers agree that government supports are not enough to cope properly with climate change. So, there is a gap between the current level of external supports and farmers’ capability to adapt with climate change. Here, sustainability of agriculture and relevant livelihood are strongly dependent on the external supports. Therefore, farmers’ adaptability to climate change needs to be focused beyond the incentive and subsidy. Farmers need some training and motivational supports for the necessary adoption. The findings of the study are important for the policy makers and relevant agencies.