AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF SUSTAINABILITY IN NAMAKKAL DISTRICT OF TAMI NADU (original) (raw)

FUNDAMENTALS OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT

The issues about food and nutrition security, poverty reduction, equality, social justice, sustainable livelihoods, and sustainable rural development have resumed good space in the national, regional and global discussions. Case studies from various countries show that over time sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD) approach based on agro-ecological principles has exhibited more stable levels of total production per unit area than high-input systems; has produced economically favorable rates of return; has provided a return to labor and other inputs sufficient for a livelihood acceptable to small farmers and their families; and has ensured soil protection and conservation; and has enhanced agro-biodiversity. With increasing evidence and awareness of the advantages of SARD, why hasn’t it spread more rapidly and how can it be multiplied and adopted or scaled up more widely? In Nepalese context, technological or ecological inventions and intentions are not enough. That requires changes in policies, institutions, and research and development in order to ensure that agro-ecological alternatives are adopted, made equitably and broadly accessible, and multiplied so that their full benefit for sustainable food and nutrition security can be realized. Existing subsidies and policy incentives for conventional chemical approaches must be dismantled and institutional structures, partnerships, and educational processes must be changed to enable the agro-ecological approach to blossom. In addition, participatory farmer-to-farmer methods of technology development and scaling up through Model Demonstration Farms must be incorporated. The challenge today is to increase investment and promulgate education-research-extension activities in regard to agro-ecology; and scale up the innovations that have already proven successful elsewhere. That will generate a meaningful impact on the income, food and nutrition security, and environmental well-being of the population, especially millions of resource-poor farmers who are yet untouched by modern agricultural technology and innovations. These concept and understandings served to be the basis of incorporating SARD as a core course in the curriculum at HICAST in affiliation with Purbanchal University, Nepal. This book is compiled based on my research, teaching and development activities during the last 15 years. This is the first book of its kind which consists of 6 chapters. The first chapter presents insights on sustainable livelihoods. The second chapter briefly discusses on food security and climate change with reference to Nepal. The third chapter presents historical account of Nepalese agriculture. The fourth chapter is about the concept, approach, strategies and various aspects of SARD. The fifth chapter deals with the concept, principles and processes of conversion of conventional farms into agro-ecological farm while the sixth chapter discusses about structures and procedures of evaluation of sustainable agriculture. Relevant research findings, case studies and reviews published in various forms have been extensively used in the text. I would like to acknowledge all the authors listed in the bibliography and references whose publications and contributions in the field of SARD and agro-ecology helped to bring this book in light in this shape and contents. This book is recommended for the students, researchers, teachers, development workers and policy makers to understand and make use of the knowledge of sustainable livelihoods, food security, sustainable agriculture and rural development from resource-poor farmers and micro-entrepreneurs’ perspectives.

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL LIVELIHOOD SECURITY IN INDIA

Indian as well as global agriculture will face several challenges over the coming decades because it must produce more food to feed affluent and growing populations. Improving agricultural productivity while conserving and enhancing natural resources is also another problem in Indian agriculture. The solution of aforesaid problem in changing scenario is sustainability in agriculture production. In India, rural economy suffers from poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, limited diversification of farming and degradation of natural resources such water, land and forest. Livelihood diversification is essential for poverty reduction, food security, rural livelihood security and improved income for rural farming community. This study paper mainly focused on sustainable agriculture, its roles in rural livelihood security, and major issues in sustainable agriculture, finally it discussed the government policies and institutions for securing the rural livelihood. The purpose of this paper is to explore how sustainable agriculture policies can better serve the goal of poverty reduction as well as rural livelihood security. The efforts to stimulate and support to the sustainable agricultural growth are essential for the rural livelihood security and rural development in India.

ISSUES OF SUSTAINABILITY IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE

The health of rural economy can be boosted through adoption of sustainable agriculture approach towards development. Large scale efforts are needed to increase production, productivity of agriculture and related products sustainably to be self-reliant and qualitatively feed our huge size of population. The quality of life and income of the farmers needs to be taken care of as it is nation's liability to care for those who feed the nation. Most of our farms are small in size therefore farmer needs more marketable surplus and climate resilient farming techniques. Knowledge, skill based and local natural resource model should be adopted instead of conventional " external input driven ". Gradual withdrawal of chemicals should be done which will boost the natural fauna and flora. The adoption of sustainable agriculture techniques will reduce cost of cultivation, increase yield, increase incomes, increase access to food, help in building social capital and building organic and chemical free villages. The focus should be shifted from mono-cropping to mixed farming. Nutritional status and livelihoods of the population should improve. In the paper thus need and importance of sustainable agriculture has been highlighted and evidences have been cited from various studies through secondary data source and finally impact of sustainable agricultural practices has been concluded.

Developing Indicators of Sustainable Agriculture at Farm Level

IOSR Journal of Agriculture and Veterinary Science, 2014

Farmers in Rurukan, (North Sulawesi, Indonesia), have long experience with conventional agricultural practices to vegetables farming in unsuitable upland areas. So far its negative impacts have sufficient evidence and that the actual production mode may not be sustainable. A practically-holistic measures which describe the sustainability of farming system in that area and to facilitate its assessment, had been developed through the following stages: farm characterizing, identification of critical issues, propose specific indicators for sustainability and, farmers assessment. The assessment of proposed indicators was involved local farmers, and that the indicators proposed were sorted under the most relevant key issues of sustainable farming and were arranged within the hierarchical framework of Principles, Criteria, Indicators. We proposed 20 sustainability indicators which most relate to outcome measures and partly in sustainability efforts. We also identified 8 environmental topics, 7 economic topics and 5 social topics. Farmers prefer two indicators attributed to economic aspect (farm income and output price stability) as the most important for sustainability of their farm, followed by one indicator attributed to social aspect (stakeholders supporting) and then two indicators attributed to environment aspect (erosion control and pest and disease control).

Quantifying the sustainability of agriculture

Irrigation and Drainage Systems, 2007

The rural sustainability index is a scientifically based tool to quantify the performance of agriculture. The sustainability of crop production is quantified from three perspectives; people, planet and profit. Within each perspective, one condition was selected that must be met to warrant agriculture. These are: No hazardous work should be used within the crop production chain; agricultural crops should not be grown on land allocated to nature by national law or regulations and, when a GM-crop is present or is introduced in a region, it should not harm development opportunities of other farmers. If these excluding conditions are met, the sustainability of agriculture is assessed through five performance indicators on school attendance, water use and consumption, fertilizer use, pesticide use, and farm income. For each of the five indicators, critical values and target values have been given that limit the transition range between non-sustainable and sustainable production. The five indicators are combined into a sustainability index. The index aims at improving the socio-economic position of farmers while protecting the environment.

An Imperical Analysis of Sustainabal Agricultural Development

CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, 2022

Sustainability in agriculture is a major issue for all developing economies. In the modern era, the Indian agricultural industry has also experienced distress and increased difficulty. to safeguard agriculture's production, profitability, and expansion and to ensure its sustainability on both a social and an environmental level. Government, NGOs, and all individual farmers should take the required actions in this direction to save our future. The development of sustainable agriculture does not significantly differ from conventional agriculture from an economic, social, or environmental standpoint.

An analysis on agricultural sustainability in India

Sustainability of agriculture is a matter of concern for various stakeholders. The challenges encountered by Indian agriculture are due to agro-climatic/environmental, social and economic dimensions. The sustainability strength comes due to vibrancy of these dimensions. In order to understand the regional and temporal dynamics of these dimensions, a state-level analysis of sustainability was made for two time-periods. The sustainability index estimation was based on the human development index methodology. Data for two time-periods, i.e. 2001 and 2011 were used to estimate the indices. The results revealed that in general, sustainability did not deteriorate over the reference period, although some states gained and some others lost in terms of change in the level of sustainability.

Agricultural sustainability in Karnataka: Application of Sustainable Livelihood Security Index

The Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences

The present study was carried out in Karnataka state to assess the relative agricultural sustainability status ofKarnataka during the year 2021–22 using Sustainable Livelihood Security Index (SLSI). Three indicators, viz.Ecological Security, Economic Efficiency and Social Equity Index were used. The results of the study show that inKarnataka better conditions for sustainable agriculture exist in majority of the Southern districts. However, few Northern districts, viz. Belagavi, Raichur, Bagalkote and Ballari have better level of ecological security and some Southern districts Bengaluru (U), Bengaluru (R), Chikkaballapur, Kolar and Ramanagara have low level of ecological security. In economic efficiency and social equity indicator also, majority of the Northern districts lagged behind compared to southern districts while Belagavi and Kalburgi districts have shown better performance compared to rest of the districts in the state. Adoption of sustainable agricultural practices such as ...

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE SECTOR: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

The purpose of this study is to examine the issues and challenges associated with sustainable agricultural growth in India. Sustainable development means achieving a balance between the supply and demand of agricultural products. The Green Revolution can increase the efficiency of agricultural products and thereby increase productivity. The final productivity of agriculture depends on the efficiency of various resources as well as the strategies and methods used. To cope with the drought caused by reduced rainfall, the farmer must adopt innovative strategies. The results of the study show innovative strategies and approaches. Achieve growth. Being the largest private sector, "Agriculture" occupies a very important place in the Indian economy. Since it has links with various sectors such as manufacturing, processing and marketing; Agriculture continues to drive change in India. The purpose of this article is to examine the importance of sustainable development in agriculture using secondary data. Agriculture is the major occupation in India as people live in rural areas and earn their living from farming. Sustainable development in the agricultural sector aims to increase productivity, efficiency and employment as well as to protect and conserve natural resources through overuse. It also provides a mechanism to reduce land degradation caused by many farming systems, deforestation and many other causes.