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Technology, infrastructure and enterprise trade-off: Strengthening smallholder farming systems in Tamil Nadu State of India for sustainable income and food security

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/11956/
https://doi.org/10.1177/00307270221077380
doi:10.1177/00307270221077380
 
Title Technology, infrastructure and enterprise trade-off: Strengthening smallholder farming systems in Tamil Nadu State of India for sustainable income and food security
 
Creator Varadan, R J
Mamidanna, S
Shalander, K
Ahmed, S K Z
Jaisankar, I
 
Subject Smallholder Farmers
Sustainable Agriculture
Food Security
 
Description The complexities of smallholder farming systems pose a challenge in demonstrating the potential benefits or risks of new
technologies and policies. Using Integrated Analysis Tool, a rule-based dynamic simulation model, this study tried to
improve the performance of major farming systems in the Tamil Nadu State of India. Amongst the four major farming
systems viz. Black gram-based (BFS), Paddy-based (PFS), and Integrated Farming Systems (IFS) in Villupuram district
and Dryland Farming System (DFS) in Virudhunagar district, IFS was found to be the most profitable and resilient
based on their performance simulated for a 3-year rotation. Setting IFS as a benchmark, potential interventions were evaluated
under other farming systems to improve their relative performance. The analysis allowed understanding the interactions
in smallholder farming systems and the potential impact of interventions in a whole farm way considering the cash
flows, cost intensity, and input-output trade-offs. While multi-bloom technology in black gram increased the net profit of
BFS without much stress on input and labour, area expansion under rainfed groundnut incurred high expenditure.
Trading-off paddy with maize and groundnut significantly increased the net profit of PFS but replacing sugarcane with
tapioca and turmeric was not remunerative. Improved livestock management practices have substantially increased the
net profit of DFS wherein crop yield could not be enhanced substantially without the prospects of good irrigation infrastructure.
The irrigation endowed PFS has achieved 90% performance, whereas the water-starved BFS and DFS could
achieve only 65% performance of IFS. We conclude that agricultural policy must not only focus on potential interventions
that are profitable but also consider what is acceptable to the farmer, considering synergies and trade-offs between competing
resources at the farm level.
 
Publisher Sage Publications
 
Date 2022
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/11956/1/IAT_Tamilnadu.pdf
Varadan, R J and Mamidanna, S and Shalander, K and Ahmed, S K Z and Jaisankar, I (2022) Technology, infrastructure and enterprise trade-off: Strengthening smallholder farming systems in Tamil Nadu State of India for sustainable income and food security. Outlook on Agriculture (TSI). pp. 1-16. ISSN 0030-7270