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Micro-scale perspectives are seldom included in planned climate change adaptations, yet farmers' perceptions can provide useful insights into livelihood impacts of interactions between climatic and other stressors. This research aims to understand how climate variability and other stressors are impacting the livelihoods of small-holder farmers in Azamgarh district, eastern Uttar Pradesh India. Data from 84 smallholder farmers were collected using mixed qualitative and quantitative approaches, including interview and participatory methods, informed by multiple stressors and sustainable livelihood frameworks. Results revealed that farmers' are increasingly facing problems caused by the reduced duration and number of rainy days, and erratic rainfall. Anomalies in seasonal cycles (longer summers, shorter winters) seem to have altered the local climate. Farmers reported that repeated drought impacts, even in years of moderate rainfall, are adversely affecting the rice crop, challenging the formal definition of drought. Climate variability, identified as the foremost stressor, often acts as a risk multiplier for ecological (e.g. soil sodicity), socioeconomic (e.g. rising costs of cultivation) and political (e.g. mismatching policies and poor extension systems) stressors. In addition to climate stresses, resource poor marginal groups in particular experienced higher risks caused by changes in resource management regimes. This study provides an important cue to revisit the formal definitions of normal rainfall and drought, accommodating farmers' perceptions that evenly distributed rainfall and not total rainfall is a key determinant of crop yields. Though India has developed adaptive measures for climate change and variability, integration of farmers' perceptions of climate and other stressors into such policies can improve the resilience of small-holder farmers, who have hitherto depended largely on autonomous adaptation strategies.