Economic and Social Vulnerability Assessment among Farmers towards Drought (Case Study: Wheat Farmers Kermanshah, Sahne, and Ravansar Townships)

IntroductionDrought is a slow-onset disaster that has economic, social, and environmentalconsequences. In Iran, drought is a re-current phenomenon. The current droughtmanagement strategies in Iran are based on crisis management. For example, whendrought becomes visible in different parts of the country, a state of emergency isdeclared and thus all resources are mobilized in that particular region. However, thistype of drought management strategy is proved to be ineffective. Therefore, riskmanagement seems to be the most effective drought management strategies ifdrought-prone areas in Iran are to recover from the so called man-made disaster.Studies show that a prerequisite to drought risk management is vulnerabilityassessment of drought affected population. Once vulnerable groups are identified,drought policy-makers can then focus their attentions toward the most vulnerableareas. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to categorize the mostvulnerable areas in rural areas of Kermanshah. Specifically, this paper sought toinvestigate the socio-economic vulnerability among a sample of wheat farmers inKermanshah, Sahne, Ravansar townships in Kermanshah province. The selection ofthese townships was based on a recent drought zone classification provided byprovincial Meteorological Center in Kermanshah. Moreover, the selected townshipswere severely affected by drought during the years 2006-2008. In addition, threedrought intensities were identified as "Very high drought intensity", "extremely highdrought intensity", and "critical drought intensity". These intensities were based onmapping concentration from Meteorological Center in Kermanshah Province.MethodologyUsing multi-stage stratified sampling, 370 farmers across three townships wereselected to participate in the study. A semi-structured questionnaire was designed tocollect data. A researcher based instrument was designed to collect the data. In orderto collect rich data, deep interview was conducted by the researcher. During theinterview, retrospective questions were asked so that farmers could go back to thepast and gradually see the present with the aim of visioning the future. In order totest for internal validity, a panel of experts from Department of AgriculturalExtension and Rural Development reviewed the research instrument. In addition,extension specialist from Agricultural-Jihad Organization provided further feedbackto the questionnaire. Drought vulnerability assessment techniques were reviewedduring extensive literature search. Among vulnerability assessment techniques, aformula suggested by Me-Bar and Valdez (2005) was considered appropriate for thisstudy.Results and DiscussionResults revealed that farmers in Ravanasar who experienced highest droughtintensities were most vulnerable in socio-economic aspects while farmers inKermanshah Township with lowest drought intensity were least vulnerable in socioeconomicaspects. In addition, Sahne Township experienced drought with intensitysomewhere between Ravansar and Kermansha Townships felt in the middleregarding socio-economic vulnerability. The interesting conclusion that can be madeis that there is a relationship between drought intensity and vulnerability levelamong study areas. The result of this survey study has implications for droughtpolicy-makers as well as drought vulnerability research in Iran. First, identifyingvulnerable regions help policy-makers to give priority to vulnerable groups whenplanning for drought mitigations. Furthermore, an up-to-date vulnerabilityassessment assists extension agents to plan more effective content for theireducational program. In addition, risk management becomes a dominant strategy formanaging drought impacts. Unlike crisis management, risk management alleviatesthe harmful effect of drought more effectively. The result of this study has alsoimplications for drought vulnerability literature. Most drought studies have focusedmore on impact of drought with less attention being paid on vulnerabilityassessment. By using the formula proposed in this study, it is hoped that moredrought researchers use this formula which in turn adds to external validity of theformula.FindingsThis study had its limitations too. For example, vulnerability is a social concept thatvaries in different areas contexts. A farmer who buys crop insurance to cover thelosses due to drought may feel less vulnerable in one area than a farmer in anotherarea with the same insurance coverage. For this reason, one needs to be morecautious when generalizing the findings of this study to a larger population. Anotherlimitation worth mentioning is getting farmers to respond to retrospectivequestionnaires like the one used in this study. Farmers are reluctant in providinganswers to the events that have occurred in the past. For this reason, it is suggestedthat interviewers spend more time with farmers and be patient when dealing withretrospective studies.