Livelihood strategies are highly vulnerable to many uncertainties of nature in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. The climatic conditions do not permit growing of more than two crops a year. This makes people to diversify their livelihood strategies other than cultivation. As the total dependence on cultivation based livelihood strategies would leave a very high proportion of the population going without any economic activity for a large part of the year, they are not left with any other choice but to adopt some other supplementary livelihood strategies for their day to day livelihoods.
Relatively small size of operational holdings results in adoption of supplementary strategies in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. The observation that majority of the produce out of cultivation is used for self-consumption and a very little of it is marketed is sufficient to infer that a large proportion of population has to supplement their earning with supplementary strategies. Scope of intensification of farm operations being limited, a high dose of technological inputs is required to improve productivity and ensure sustainability in the regions.
Another constraint to the livelihoods strategies is the frequent landslips and landslides. The climatic conditions and various anthropogenic activities together with highly fragile nature of the strata of regions make vulnerable to this phenomenon.
Another common disaster is flash floods and cloud bursts. They are extreme events and occur under slowly moving or stationary thunder storm and last for less than 24 hours. The cloud bursts or flash floods alter the entire physiography, economy and life support systems to an almost irreversible level.
Extreme loss of soil fertility and damage to land basin caused by soil erosion is another event which makes the sustainability of farm dependent rural poor vulnerable. The steep slopes in hilly terrain have the terraced farming prevalent in them and these farms are more prone to soil erosion with the slightest of rains.