2023, Vol. 8, Special Issue 3

The mulberry cultivation and silk worm rearing in several sericulture clusters of Southern region of India are severely affected due to drought. The coping mechanisms adopted by the farming community have recently become a subject of increasing importance in climate change research with an objective to reduce the vulnerability of climate sensitive activity. The present study designed to know the technological preferences of farmers towards sericulture, mainly focusing on both mulberry cultivation and silkworm rearing to manage drought in Chikkaballapura district of Karnataka. The practices such as the drip irrigation and micro irrigation techniques, followed by trenching and mulching, formation of runoff collection pits/ponds, green manuring, summer ploughing and sub soiling are major strategies adopted by the farmers in mulberry garden. The practices such as reducing size of rearing, skipping of rearing and providing leaf to animals, shift from BV to CB rearing and early brushing in summer season are major management practices adopted by the sericulture farmers in silkworm rearing. The study also aims to investigate the determinants of adoption of coping mechanisms by the farmers to mitigate the impact of drought on their farming activity. The discriminant analysis was carried out and the result shows that the predictor variables such as education, crop diversity, animal husbandry, non-farming income, liquid assets, Government support, extension activities and information communication sources are relatively more important and positively influencing on adoption of drought coping strategies.