3.3.1 Farmers’ drought definition
Farmers talked about a ‘good year’ or ‘bad year’ when evaluating a crop season. Any disruption that limits crop harvest causes a bad year and most commonly farmers described it based on weather conditions (Table 5). In the group discussion, farmers stated that the word ‘drought’ became familiar to them through media and extension workers. Farmers’ perception about drought was mostly found to be linked with rainfall related issues (Table 4). Majority of the farmers considered drought as erratic distribution of rainfall like no rain for a stated period of time (60%), late start of rainy season (53.3%), early cessation of rainfall (43.3%). Despite rainfall related interpretation, more than 30 percent of the farmers referred that crops/plants dry up or burned and seed/seedlings cutting were not germinate also considered as drought. On the other hand, 30 percent of the farmers stated that drought was the consequence of low water holding capacity of the soil which cannot support plant growth. Only 6.7 percent of the farmers pointed out other definitions of drought included insufficient feed for livestock, low crops yield etc.