OEC - 2010 CED, HDF & NMNH Rainfall Pattern, Drought and Agricultural Instability in Bolangir Mrutyunjay Swain1and Mamata Swain2 1Research Officer (Economics), Agro-Economic Research Centre, Sardar Patel University, Vallabh Vidyanagar-388 120, Gujarat, India, 2 Professor and Head, Department of Economics, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack- 753003. INTRODUCTION Drought is a recurring and single most insidious phenomenon in Bolangir district of Orissa, which accounts for its ‘chronic backwardness’ (Pattnaik, 1998). The district has been affected by droughts of different intensities in seventeen out of last forty years, i.e., 1962-63 to 2002-03. In addition, the intensity and frequency of the drought episodes appear to be increasing with each passing year. About 57 per cent of the villages were affected in the 1899 drought whereas as large as 94 per cent were affected in the 1996 drought (Mallik and Meher, 1999). From the available rainfall data, it is observed that every three years cycle the district has been facing a drought. However, during 1995-2003, every alternate year (1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002) a drought episode has occurred in the district. The increased frequency of drought is one of the major factors behind the rise in drought vulnerability of the district. The increased occurrence of drought is mainly due to a widening of the variability of rainfall from season to season, rather than as a result of deficiency of annual rainfall (Sainath, 1996; Swain, 2006; 2010). The variability in rainfall in Bolangir is the most influential biophysical factor among all factors of drought vulnerability since 96 per cent cultivable land in the region is still rainfed (Swain and Swain, 2009). The enormous variability in rainfall has brought about a significant level of instability in crop production in the region with considerable effects on the income, expenditure and savings of rural households (Swain and Swain, 2006). The proper understanding of the pattern of rainfall and agricultural instability in the region would help in formulating appropriate risk management strategy for rainfed agriculture. An analysis of historical rainfall data would help in forecasting the onset of rains or their amount, distribution, or duration. This would essentially facilitate better crop planning, development of befitting agro-techniques, recommendation of suitable crop varieties, design of water harvesting tanks, earthen dams and other soil conservation structures that are crucial for reducing the level of drought risk and vulnerability of farmer community in the region. In this context, the present paper analyses the short-term and long-term behaviour of rainfall like onset of effective monsoon, critical dry spells, forecasting of dry and wet spells, drought probability and intensity and their implications for crop planning in the study region by taking into account the block level daily rainfall data for 18 years (1986-2003). The second part of this paper assesses the impact of rainfall variability and other agricultural inputs like irrigation and fertilizer use on agricultural instability.