CORRELATION AND REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF WOMEN FARMERS’ CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR SENSITIVITY TOWARDS EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON CEREAL CROPS

Climate change significantly impacts agricultural systems, particularly in rainfed regions like Dahod district, Gujarat, India, where cereal crops such as maize form the dietary staple. Women farmers, integral to smallholder agricultural systems, are highly vulnerable to climate change due to socio-economic constraints, limited resource access and a reliance on climate-sensitive livelihoods. This study examines the how women farmers’ characteristics affect the sensitivity towards effect of climate change. The study utilized an ex-post-facto research design, selecting 40 women farmers from two talukas of Dahod district through random sampling. Correlation and regression analyses were performed on data collected for 14 independent variables. Sensitivity towards effects of climate change on cereal crops served as the dependent variable. The findings reveal significant positive correlations between sensitivity and variables such as education, irrigation source, extension contact, change proneness, scientific orientation, and risk orientation, while age and farming experience demonstrated negative correlations. Regression analysis highlighted farming experience, landholding, extension contact, and cosmopoliteness as key predictors, explaining 61.5% of the variation in sensitivity. Step-wise regression analysis indicated that cosmopoliteness alone accounted for 39.5% of the variation, increasing to 58.5% when combined with farming experience and extension contact.