Climatic instability and resilience in the agricultural production of rainfed crops in the state of Paraiba, Brazil

Abstract

In Paraíba, most farmers practice rainfed agriculture, which depends on rainfall for its full development. The rainfed crops studied were rice, beans, cassava and corn. The objectives of the research were: a) to identify the behavior of rainfall in the state of Paraíba between 1901 and 2020 and try to classify it into three specific periods: dry, normal and rainy; b) to gauge the levels of instability/stability of annual rainfall c) to design an instrument that is capable of gauging, in a weighted and compressed manner, the synergy that exists between the defining variables of rice, bean, manioc and corn production in Paraíba from 1945 to 2020, the years in which data is available at an aggregate level for the state; and d) to assess the existence of resilience in agricultural production by analyzing the cause-effect relationship between the instrument designed in objective "b" and the rainfall observed in the state. Factor analysis was used to construct the Rainfed Crop Resilience Index (IRLS), which was used to assess the behavior of rainfed production in Paraíba. The results showed that the state had high rainfall instability over the 120 years analyzed. There was evidence of the resilience of dryland farmers in the face of rainfall instability during the period.