Assessing climate change effect on ginger crop in Bishnupur district of Manipur: Farmers’ perception

Abstract

Ginger is an important cash crop which is native to Asia belonging to Zingiberaceae family. It is used as spice, medicines, condiments and flavoring drinks. India is the largest producer of ginger and grown all over the North-eastern states of India. In Manipur, the production of ginger in 2020-2021 was estimated 66939MT in area of 4801ha as against 72336MT in area of 4988ha in 2019-2020. Over the years there is increasing trend in temperature and erratic rainfall in the whole world. The climate change mostly affects the agricultural sector. The study was proposed with objectives to study the socio-economic profile of the ginger farmers and the perception of the ginger farmers’ to climate change. The sample size was collected by simple random techniques. Primary data was collected through personal interview using pretested interview schedule. In order to achieve the framed objectives, we have used statistical tools like mean, frequency, percentage, standard deviation, correlation and ordinal logistic regression. The farmers in the study area had perceived an increase in summer temperature, minimum average temperature, drought like situation and decrease in annual rainfall quantity, flood like situation and frost intensity. The outcomes of ordinal logistic regression portray that age, mass media exposure and extension agent contact have most significant influence on perception of climate change while annual income have negative significant influence.