Data on assessment of impacts of drought in Bihar during 2022

Agriculture is the most severely affected sector due to drought-like situations. Bihar is one of the most vulnerable states to drought due to its geographical location, and its high dependency on rainfed agriculture. The first survey, in Kharif season 2022 covered 518 farmers from 11 districts, 39 blocks and 79 villages of Bihar in October 2022. The second survey was the phone survey which was conducted to collect the data for the Rabi season 2022. We interviewed 339 farmers out of the 518 farmers in June 2023. To validate the first phone survey, we interviewed 229 farmers out of the 518 farmers. These drought impact surveys were designed in a way that data are collected from randomly selected farmers spread uniformly within a KVK domain/district. The survey questionnaire captures all production practices applied by farmers from land preparation to harvesting, including detailed sections on crop establishment, sources and methods of irrigation, fertilizer use, weed control and cost of irrigation. Data is captured through the electronically enabled Open Data Kit (ODK) tool on mobile phone or tablet. This contributes as a useful database which can be used by researchers, and policymakers for developing Bihar’s drought management strategy to protect the farmers from future drought-like situations.