UCLA

Smallholder farmers in the Himalayan district of Nainital in Uttarakhand, India depend on predictable weather patterns for both food and cash crop cultivation. The manifestation of climate change in changing weather patterns is expected to endanger rural food security, as many of these farmers operate at subsistence-level. In an analysis of a 307-household survey of smallholder farmers, I find that respondents perceive changes in weather patterns and report adverse effects on their agricultural productivity. Despite describing traditional grains as crops best suited to adverse weather, respondents still choose to grow cash crops that they believe to be the most vulnerable to these weather patterns. The competing motivations of sustainability and profitability are explained by the growing prominence of the Indian Public Distribution System, which has created a buffer against the drought-precipitated famine by providing heavily subsidized grain but, in turn, diminished the profitability of locally produced grain. I argue that overall food security and sustainability can be improved by reorienting the objectives of agricultural policy and welfare policy to value local preferences and to treat smallholder farmers as agents rather than welfare recipients.