Flood hazards and agricultural production risks management practices in flood-prone areas of Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Climate induced disasters, more specifically floods, have caused severe damage to the agriculture sector in Pakistan. These climatic risks have constrained the farming community to adopt risk management strategies to overcome such climate change risks. This research work attempted to examine the association of risk management tools with farmers' perception of risk, risk averse attitude, and various socioeconomic factors. The study has employed the sample data of 398 farmers from two high-risk flood-prone districts of Punjab, Pakistan. The multivariate probit model was used in this study to investigate the association of dependent and independent variables. The findings of the study indicated that small farmers consider heavy rains and floods severe risks to their agricultural production and are more risk averse than large farmers. Estimates of a multivariate probit model interpreted as age of farmer (0.036), heavy rains risk perception (0.597), and landholding size (0.114) were positively related with the risk management tool of depletion of assets. Farmers' education (0.056), off-farm income (3.47), age (0.018), and risk averse attitude of farmer (0.687) were positive, whereas experience of farming (-0.037) was negatively linked with reduction of consumption. Furthermore, experience of farming (0.005), risk averse attitude (0.493), heavy rains (0.481), and flood risk perception (0.536) were positively related with diversification adoption. The flood-prone farming community is more vulnerable to these climatic risks and rely on traditional strategies for risk management. There is a need to adopt crop diversification based on developing research capacity for innovative crop varieties having resistance to floods and climate change affects. Some significant policy measures, such as a more resilient scenario of climate change and floods, need to stimulate activities of enterprise diversification, opportunities of diversifying employment, and strengthening activities of off-farm employment for the sound livelihood of flood-prone farmers and to minimize severe affects of climatic risks.

Keywords: Climate change; Erratic rains; Flood hazards; Risk management; Risk perception.