Livelihood strategies of small-scale farmers in Pakistan in the scenario of climate change

The present study was designed to assess the livelihood strategies of small-scale farmers in rainfed areas of Pakistan. The targeted area of the study was Potohar region of the Punjab Province. Quantitative data were collected from 200 households and analyzed by using SPSS. Results highlighted that the situation of livelihood assets possessed by the respondents was not satisfactory. Majority of the households had limited human, financial, physical, social and natural capitals. In the scenario of climate change, households adopted diverse nature of farm and non-farm related strategies to secure their livelihoods. Findings of chi-square statistics showed highly significant association (P<0.05) between agricultural diversification strategies being adopted by households in the situation of changing climate and income level of households. It was found that social capital was highly influenced and depends upon income level of households as majority (67.0%) of the poor people with low income level had low level of financial capital. The preference or choice of livelihood strategies by different income groups was measured through chi-square test of independence (χ2=122.770) which shows that majority (79.3%) of low income households used to adopt only farming as their major livelihood strategy. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that problem of poverty and hunger (PPH) can easily be estimated from different livelihood assets like education, ability to produce enough food, access to rural advisory (extension) services, access to financial support structures (in the form of social safety nets) and crop diversification strategies.