This research investigates the challenges farmers face in adapting to global climate change, with a focus on the diverse characteristics of different farming groups. While there is widespread advocacy for innovations such as precision agriculture and climate-smart technologies, their diffusion and adoption rates remain limited, and the reasons for varying outcomes across different farmer groups are not well understood. This segment of my work asks four key questions: How do farmers adapt to climate change? Who is capable of adapting their farming practices? How does this adaptive capacity vary among different farmers, particularly those from historically disadvantaged groups? And what are the long-term impacts of these disparities on agricultural sustainability? I have conducted this work on agricultural systems in Africa and India as well as rangelands in the American West.

Related grants: NSF Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program Award 2343136 (PI)

Related selected publications:
  1. Mueller, V., Masias, I., and Vallury, S. (2019). Labor-Saving Technologies and Structural Transformation in Northern Ghana. Agricultural Economics, 50(5), 581-594.
  2. Vallury, S., Smith, A.P., Chaffin, B.C., Nesbitt, H.K., Lohani, S., Gulab, S., Banerjee, S., Floyd, T.M., Metcalf, A.L., Metcalf, E.C., Twidwell, D., Uden, D.R., Williamson, M.A., and Allen, C.R. (2022). Beyond the household: a literature review of scale and aggregation in adaptive capacity research.  Environmental Research Letters, 17, 063001.
  3. Nesbitt, H., Metcalf, A., Floyd, T., Uden, D., Chaffin, B., Gulab, S., Banerjee, S.,  Vallury, S., Hamlin, S., Metcalf, E., Fogarty, D., Twidwell, D., and Allen, C. (2024). Social networks and transformative behaviors in a grassland social-ecological system. People & Nature. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10695
  4. Vallury, S., Cook, N.J., and Nelson, D. Social inequalities shape climate change adaptation in Indian farmers. (Under review) [pdf].