Development and Standardization of an Adaptation Index to Assess the Climate Resilient Practices by Paddy Growers

India is prominently recognized as the foremost producer of paddy, cultivating this crop over 47.83 million hectares and generating 135.75 million tonnes of paddy, thus playing a substantial role in the worldwide paddy output. However, there is an anticipated decline in paddy production yields due to the projected effects of climate change, estimated to range from 10% to 30% by 2030. In recent times, adaptation to climate change has become a major concern to farmers, policy makers and researchers. Climate resilient rice production practices need to be enhanced at the farm level in order to aid rural residents in improving their household food security. Against this backdrop, the proposed research seeks to fill this crucial knowledge gap by developing and constructing adaptation index tailored specifically for paddy growers in India. Through a literature review and discussions with experts, we have identified indicators and sub-indicators using the indicator approach method. These indicators will help us understand how paddy growers are adapting to climate change and implementing climate resilient practices. The relevancy rating score was obtained from 30 experts in the concerned area. Based on the relevancy score, 8 indicators and 23 sub-indicators of 0.80 and above were considered for inclusion in the adaptation index. To compute the index values for each of the identified indicators, their relative importance in the adaptation practices was worked out by assignment of index values to indicators through Principal component analysis (PCA) based on the high factor loadings exceeded 0.5 of sub-indicators were considered and the findings revealed that disease and management had highest index value of 3.461, followed by methods of paddy establishment (2.195), crop rejuvenation techniques (2.10), altered planting dates (2.049), water saving and management techniques (1.987), nursery management (1.562), paddy varieties (1.342) and spacing (1.214).