Crop diversification and resilience of agriculture to climatic shocks: Evidence from India.

Indian agriculture is highly vulnerable to climate shocks, such as floods, droughts and heat-stress. In this paper, using a dynamic panel-data approach we have assessed the impact of rainfall-deficit and heat-stress on agricultural productivity, and subsequently evaluated effectiveness of crop diversification in mitigating their adverse effects. The findings show that both rainfall-deficit and heat-stress damage agricultural productivity, and the damage increases with increase in their severity. Nevertheless, we find crop diversification as an important ex ante adaptation measure to climatic shocks and its adaptation benefits are more apparent against severe shocks and in the long-run. Our findings reinforce the dynamic role of crop diversification in improving resilience of agricultural production systems to climatic shocks. • There exists a dynamic relationship between climatic shocks, diversification and system productivity. • Climatic shocks adversely affect system productivity, and the effect intensifies with their rising severity. • Diversification enhances resilience of production system to climatic shocks. • Resilience benefits of diversification are more apparent in the long-run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]