Climate resilience agriculture (CRA) in the Brazilian semi-arid region

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the climate resilient agriculture (CRA) in rainfed crops cultivated semi-arid zone of Ceará a Brazilian State. To do this, it has four specific objectives: a) to classify the rainfall distribution of Ceará State from 1901 to 2020 into three periods: drought, normal and rainy; b) to evaluate the years of occurrence of those periods between 1945 to 2020 because the crops production data are available only in those years; c) to evaluate how the production of rice, beans, cassava and corn in Ceará State behave in each of these periods in the studied years; d) to assess the instabilities/stabilities of rainfall, as well as those associated with the defining variables of studied crops production; e) to assess evidence of the existence of resilience in the production of these crops in rainy or normal years of rainfall following those of drought, as defined in this study. It was used factor analysis methodology to build the synergy index (SIN) to evaluate the gathered variables used to measure the production of crops. All the objectives are achieved and there were found evidences of climate resilience agriculture among the production of rice, bean, cassava and corn from 1945 to 2020 in Brazilian Ceará State.