Smallholder farmers’ responses to the climate-induced agricultural changes are not uniform but rather diverse, as response adaptation strategies are embedded in the heterogonous agronomic, social, economic, and institutional conditions. There is an urgent need to understand the diversity within the farming households, identify the main drivers and understand its relationship with household adaptation strategies. Typology construction provides an efficient method to understand farmer diversity by delineating groups with common characteristics. In the present study, based in the Uttarakhand state of Indian Western Himalayas, five farmer types were identified on the basis of resource endowment and agriculture orientation characteristics. Factor analysis followed by sequential agglomerative hierarchial and K-means clustering was use to delineate farmer types. Examination of adaptation strategies across the identified farmer types revealed that mostly contrasting and type-specific bundle of strategies are adopted by farmers to ensure livelihood security. Our findings show that strategies that incurred high investment, such as infrastructural development, are limited to high resource-endowed farmers. In contrast, the low resourced farmers reported being progressively disengaging with farming as a livelihood option. Our results suggest that the proponents of effective adaptation policies in the Himalayan region need to be cognizant of the nuances within the farming communities to capture the diverse and multiple adaptation needs and constraints of the farming households.

Assessing vulnerability to climate change and extremes is the first step towards guiding climate change adaptation. It provides the basis to decide ‘what’ adaptation measures are needed ‘where’. Vulnerability which is defined as a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, differs spatially and evolves temporally. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the dynamics of vulnerability at sub-national scales to be prepared for and respond to current and future climatic risks. This paper focuses on Ethiopia where a sub-national understanding of vulnerability dynamics in smallholder agriculture systems is missing to date. The paper assesses the vulnerability of crop-based smallholder systems in Ethiopia for the past (1996–2005), current (2006–2015), and two future (2036–2045 and 2066–2075) climate scenarios using an indicator-based approach. The future scenarios are based on two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) RCP 2.6 and RCP 6.0 from four general circulation models. Results show the emergence of highly vulnerable zones that were missing in the past scenario. With Paris agreement pathway, keeping global warming under 2 °C (RCP 2.6), reduction in vulnerability of 10% of the zones is noted in far future (2066–75) as compared to RCP 6.0 where the exposure increases, making 30% of the zones highly vulnerable. The projected increase in exposure to climatic hazards will worsen the vulnerability of smallholder agricultural systems in future unless the current adaptation deficit is sufficiently addressed. This study maps the temporal dynamics of vulnerability unlike the prevailing snapshot assessments at subnational-level for Ethiopia. The study seeks to assist the decision-making process to build resilience to climate change in Ethiopia and other low-income countries with similar geophysical and socio-economic conditions.

Agriculture in the Himalayas has witnessed dynamic shifts and acute crises over the last decade. This viewpoint identifies and discusses the factors leading to de-agrarianisation and land abandonment in the western Himalayas. Data on farming preferences and bottlenecks for agricultural production were also gathered through a short survey with farmers. Escalating male out-migration, land fragmentation and heightened exposure to uncertain environmental conditions have transformed agriculture into a liability for the farmers. The viewpoint suggests that effective implementation of land consolidation reforms in the region would enhance agricultural production, curtail mass migration, and potentially insulate farmers from the ongoing agrarian crisis.