This study investigated farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a forestation based soil conservation program on communal land in district Bagh, Kashmir. Data were collected from a random sample of 180 farm households on a well structured questionnaire possessed with a contingent valuation question. Majority of the sampled farm households reported moderate to high water erosion problem and their mean annual WTP for the soil conservation program was $34. The foremost beneficiary of the program were expected to be the farm households facing high erosion, and that’s why their mean stated WTP was significantly high than others. Other important determinants of WTP were farm-size, household’s income and head’s education, farming experience, perceptions about soil erosion and contact with extension agents. The aggregate WTP for a farm household were calculated to be $214 for 10 years. This suggests that sufficient funds can be generated from local stakeholders for the implementation of the soil conservation program.

The vulnerability of farmers to climate variability is an important topic of discussion. It varies depending upon diverse factors that disturbing it, likewise, the extent of vulnerability varies according to different levels, i.e.; from a whole country level to an individual level or in other words from macro to micro level. This study attempts to build a framework for the assessment of the microlevel vulnerability of farmers. A vulnerability index was made from normalized values of three major component indices (sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacity), which is made up of a selected number of sub components. The study was conducted by selecting respondents from two districts of Kerala, and it was found that this method can be used as an empirical method to interpret the vulnerability to climate variability, keeping the fact that it is only a constrained measure of risk.