thesis statement of sustainable agriculture

• Open access
• Published: 15 March 2022

Effects of sustainable agricultural practices on farm income and food security in northern Ghana

• Edinam Dope Setsoafia   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7213-8920 1 ,
• Wanglin Ma 1 &
• Alan Renwick   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7847-8459 1  

Agricultural and Food Economics volume  10 , Article number:  9 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

37 Citations

Metrics details

The adoption of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) has been recommended by many experts and international institutions to address food security and climate change problems. Global support for the Sustainable Development Goals has focused attention on efforts to up-scale the adoption of SAPs in developing countries where growth in populations and incomes compromises the resilience of natural resources. This study investigates the factors affecting smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt SAPs (improved seed, fertilizer, and soil and water conservation) and the impacts of the adoption on farm income and food security, using data collected from Ghana. Food security is captured by the reduced coping strategy index and household dietary diversity. The multinomial endogenous switching regression model is utilized to address selection bias issues. Results show that farmers’ decisions to adopt SAPs are influenced by the social demographics of the households, plot-level characteristics, extension services and locations. Adopting all three SAPs has larger positive impacts on farm income and food security than adopting single or two SAPs. Our findings advocate for policies that enhance the quality of extension service and strengthen farmer-based organizations for the wider dissemination of adequate SAP information. Farmers should be encouraged to adopt SAPs as a comprehensive package for increasing farm income and ensuring food security.

Introduction

There is considerable pressure on agriculture to meet the demands of a growing world population. This is heightened with rising demand for necessities such as food, raw materials for industries, and biofuels. However, growth in agricultural production globally does not match this demand well, especially in parts of Africa. Africa has been projected to be vulnerable to climate change because of its proximity to the equator (Ojo et al. 2021 ; Thinda et al. 2021 ; Sarr et al. 2021 ; Onyeneke 2021 ; Ahmed 2022 ). Some of the physical impacts of climate change in Africa are rising sea levels, temperature andchange, and rainfall change (World Bank 2010 ; Abdulai 2018 ), which will harm agricultural productivity, farm income, food security, and economic development. This will negatively affect the poor, whose livelihoods are tired of agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa.

There has been a global discussion on overcoming the negative externalities of climate change. Most experts believe that sustainable agriculture management could be a solution to the challenge associated with climate change (Kassie et al. 2013 ; Ndiritu et al. 2014 ; Ogemah 2017 ; Zhou et al. 2018 ; Adenle et al. 2019 ; Rose et al. 2019 ; Zeweld et al. 2020 ; Ma and Wang 2020 ; Ehiakpor et al. 2021 ; Bekele et al. 2021 ). This approach is expected to improve agricultural production performance whilst reversing the negative degradation processes on the agroecosystem, particularly in smallholder farming systems. It is an upgrade of the green revolution, which led to a significant increase in agricultural productivity globally and is credited for jump-starting economies in Asia out of poverty but has left negative externalities such as deforestation, land degradation, salinization of water bodies, and loss of biodiversity in its wake.

To reverse the negative externalities from crop intensification, farmers have been advised to adopt sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs), which are made up of elements of the green revolution and an agronomic revolution. The literature is filled with studies on the adoption of specific or single elements of SAPs, such as improved seed, irrigation, drought-tolerant crop varieties, climate-resilient crop variety, organic soil amendments, and soil and water conservation practices, and their effects on crop yield and net farm income (Abdulai and Huffman 2014 ; Agula et al. 2018 ; Adenle et al. 2019 ; Adegbeye et al. 2020 ; Kimathi et al. 2021 ; Zheng et al. 2021 ; Ahmed 2022 ; Yang et al. 2022 ). Despite the potential complementarity or substitutability of specific elements of SAPs, the research on the adoption of multiple SAPs and their effects on outcome variables such as income, outputs, consumption expenditure and food security remains limited.

This paper seeks to investigate the determinants of multiple SAP adoption and the adoption effects on farm income and food security, using second-hand data collected from Ghana. This study contributes to the literature in twofold. First, it provides empirical insights into the importance of SAPs on welfare indicators, specifically food security. The use of food security as a proxy measure for welfare is particularly important in the Ghanaian context, where farming is done mostly on a subsistence level, and farmers sell crops as and when they need cash. Thus, farmers may be food secure but not have a high net farm income or high consumption expenditure. Our analysis extends previous studies that have focused on other proxies of household welfare such as net farm income, net crop income and consumption expenditure (Kassie et al. 2013 ; Teklewold et al. 2013a ; Manda et al. 2016 ; Bopp et al. 2019 ; Oyetunde Usman et al. 2020 ; Ehiakpor et al. 2021 ). Secondly, we employ a multinomial endogenous switching regression model to mitigate selection bias. In particular, this model helps address the selection bias issues arising from observed factors (e.g., age, gender and education) and unobserved factors (farmers’ innate ability in innovation adoption and motivations to address external shocks). Findings from the study will aid in formulating specific policies targeted at improving SAP adoption and enhancing the food security status of farm households in developing countries.

The remaining sections of the paper are as follows; " Literature review " section covers a review of relevant literature. The methodology is presented in " Methodology " section. The descriptive and empirical results are presented and discussed in " Results and discussions " section. The final section highlights the conclusions and policy implications of the findings.

Literature review

A growing number of studies have explored the factors that determine the adoption of SAPs in Africa. In the past, most of the works have focused on single components of SAPs (Abdulai and Huffman 2014 ; Carrión Yaguana et al. 2015 ; Fisher et al. 2015 ; Adenle et al. 2019 ; Manda et al. 2020a ; Martey et al. 2020 ; Kimathi et al. 2021 ; Lampteym 2022 ). For example, Abdulai and Huffman ( 2014 ) reported that rice farmers’ decisions to adopt soil and water conservation are influenced by their education, capital and labour constraints, social networks, extension contacts, and farm soil conditions. Manda et al. ( 2018 ) found that farmers’ decisions to adopt improved maize varieties are mainly influenced by education, household size, livestock holdings, land per capita, market information, and locations in Zambia. The study by Martey et al. ( 2020 ) reveals that farmers’ adoption of drought-tolerant maize varieties is mainly determined by access to seed, gender, access to extension, labour availability and location of the farmer in Ghana. Kimathi et al. ( 2021 ) investigated farmers’ decisions to adopt climate-resilient potato varieties and found that the main factors affecting adoption were access to information, quality seeds, training, group membership and variations in agro-ecological zones.

Some studies have also explored the factors affecting smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt multiple SAPs. Most of the past works have been focused on Eastern and Southern Africa (Teklewold et al. 2013a ; Kassie et al. 2015 ; Cecchini et al. 2016 ; Bese et al. 2021 ; Nonvide 2021 ), though a growing number of studies seek to bridge the research gap in the adoption of multiple SAPs in West Africa (Nkegbe and Shankar 2014 ; Struik et al. 2014 ; Ehiakpor et al. 2021 ; Faye et al. 2021 ). The multiple SAPs considered by Teklewold et al. ( 2013a ) include maize–legume rotation, conservation tillage, animal manure use, improved seed, and inorganic fertiliser use. They showed that a household’s trust in government support, credit constraints, spouse education, rainfall and plot-level disturbances, household wealth, social capital and networks, labour availability, plot and market access are the main factors determining both the probability and the extent of adoption of SAPs in rural Ethiopia. In their investigation for Ghana, the multiple SAPs considered by Ehiakpor et al. ( 2021 ) include improved maize seeds, maize-legume rotation, animal manure, legume intercropping, crop residue retention, zero/minimum tillage, integrated pest management, and chemical fertilizer. Non-farm income, livestock ownership, pest and disease prevalence, farmers’ experience of erosion, farmers’ perception of poor soil fertility, participation in field demonstration, membership of saving groups, access to agricultural credit, plot ownership, and distance to the agricultural input market are found to be important determinants of adoption of SAPs (Ehiakpor et al. 2021 ).

Studies estimating the impacts of SAP have utilized various outcome variables, such as household income, agrochemical use, demand for labour, crop yields, food security (Teklewold et al. 2013b ; Abdulai and Huffman 2014 ; Gebremariam and Wünscher 2016 ; Manda et al. 2016 ; Amondo et al. 2019 ; Marenya et al. 2020 ; Oduniyi and Chagwiza 2021 ). Gebremariam and Wünscher ( 2016 ) found that higher combinations of SAPs led to higher payoff measured by net crop income and consumption expenditure in Ghana. Khonje et al. ( 2018 ) showed that joint adoption of multiple SAPs had higher impacts on yields, household income and poverty than the adoption of components of the technology package in Zambia. Amondo et al. ( 2019 ) found that adopting drought-tolerant maize varieties increases maize yield by 15% in Zambia. Marenya et al. ( 2020 ) concluded that a higher number of SAPs adopted resulted in higher maize grain yield and maize income in Ethiopia. The adoption of elements of SAPs has been said to be context-specific because there are no blueprints of the various combination of SAPs that work in every environment. Therefore, this study explores how SAP adoption affects farm income and food security, using Ghana as a case.

Methodology

Smallholder farmers make decisions to adopt SAPs in response to external shocks such as drought, erosion, perceived decline in soil fertility, weeds, pests, and diseases. Both observed factors (e.g., age, gender, education and farm size) and unobserved factors (e.g., farmers’ innate abilities and motivations) may affect their decisions when choosing to adopt a single SAP or a package (Kassie et al. 2013 ; Teklewold et al. 2013a ; Manda et al. 2016 ; Ehiakpor et al. 2021 ). Due to the self-selection nature of technology adoption, farmers without adopting any SAPs and those adopting a single SAP or package may be systematically different. The fact results in a selection bias issue, which should be addressed for consistently estimating the effects of SAP adoption.

When technology adoption has more than two options, previous studies have used either the multi-valued treatment effects (MVT) model (Cattaneo 2010 ; Ma et al. 2021 ; Czyżewski et al. 2022 ) or the multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) model (Kassie et al. 2015 ; Oparinde 2021 ; Ahmed 2022 ) to address the selection bias issues. For example,Czyżewski et al. ( 2022 ) estimated the long-term impacts of political orientation (economic views and individual value systems) on the environment using the MVT model. They confirmed that local orientation is conducive to long-term environmental care. Using the MESR model, Ahmed ( 2022 ) evaluated the impact of improved maize varieties and inorganic fertilizer on productivity and wellbeing. He found that combining the two technologies significantly boosts maize yield and consumption expenditure than adopting the technologies in isolation. Because of the non-parametric nature, the MVT model can only address the observed selection bias and does not account for unobserved section bias. In comparison, the MESR model can help mitigate selection bias issues arising from both observed and unobserved factors, and thus, it is employed in this study.

Multinomial endogenous switching regression

The MESR model estimate three stages. The first stage models factors affecting smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt a specific SAP technology or a package. Following Teklewold et al. ( 2013a ), this study focuses on three main SAP technologies, namely improved seeds (I), fertilizer (F), and soil and water conservation (cereal-legume rotation/cereal – legume intercropping, manure use, organic input use) (S). The three categories result in eight possible choices of SAPs. It bears an emphasis here that because of the small number of observations in the group that captures the combination of improved seed and fertilizer (26 samples) and the group that captures the combination of improved seed and soil and water conservation (9 samples), we combined them in empirical estimations. Also, it is worth noting here that no household has only adopted improved seed. These facts indicate that there are six mutually exclusive choices of SAP technology, including (1) non-adoption (I 0 F 0 S 0 ); (2) fertilizer only (I 0 F 1 S 0 ); (3) soil and water conservation only (I 0 F 0 S 1 ); (4) combination of improved seed and fertilizer and combination of improved seed and soil and water conservation (I 1 F 1 S 0 ); (5) combination of fertilizer and soil and water conservation (I 0 F 1 S 1 ); (6) combination of improved seed, fertilizer, and soil and water conservation (I 1 F 1 S 1 ). Farmers choose one of the six possible choices to maximize the expected benefit.

The study assumes that the error terms are identical and independently Gumbel distributed, the probability that farmer i , with X characteristics will choose package j, is specified using a multinomial logit model (McFadden 1973 ; Teklewold et al. 2013a ; Zhou et al. 2020 ; Ma et al. 2022b ). It is specified as follows:

where P ij represents the probability that a farmer i chooses to adopt SAP technology j. X i is a vector of observed exogenous variables that capture household, plot, and location-level characteristics. β j is a vector of parameters to be estimated. The maximum likelihood estimation is used to estimate the parameters of the latent variable model.

In the second stage, the ordinary least square (OLS) model is used to establish the relationship between the outcome variables (farm income and food security) and a set of exogenous variables denoted by Z for the chosen SAP technology. Non-adoption of SAPs (i.e., base category, I 0 F 0 S 0 ) is denoted as j  = 1, with the other combinations denoted as ( j  = 2 …, 6). The possible equations for each regime is specified as:

where I is an index that denotes farmer i ’s choice of adopting a type of SAP technology; Q i is the outcome variables for the i- th farmer; Z i is a vector of exogenous variables; α 1 and α J are parameters to be estimated; u i 1 and u iJ are the error terms.

Relying on a vector of observed covariates, captured by Z i , Eqs. (2a) and (2b) can help address the observed selection bias issue. However, if the same unobserved factors (e.g., farmers’ motivations to adopt SAPs) simultaneously influence farmers’ decisions to adopt SAPs and outcome variables, the error terms in Eqs. (2a) and (2b) and the error term in Eq. ( 1 ) would be correlated. In this case, unobserved selection bias occurs. Failing to address such type of selection bias would generate biased estimates. Within the MESR framework, the selectivity correction terms are calculated after estimating Eq. ( 1 ) and then included into Eqs. (2a) and (2b) to mitigate unobserved selection bias. Formally, Eqs. (2a) and (2b) can be rewritten as follows:

where Q i and Z i are defined earlier; λ 1 and λ J are selectivity correction terms used to address unobserved selection bias issues; σ 1 and σ J are covariance between error terms in Eqs. ( 1 ), (2a) and (2b). In the multinomial choice setting, there are J  − 1 selectivity-correction terms, one for each alternative SAP combination.

For consistently estimating the MESR model, at least one instrumental variable (IV) should be included in X i in the MNL model but not in the Z i in the outcome equations. In this study, two distance variables, distance to weekly market and minutes 30 to the plot, are employed as IVs for model identification purposes. Distance to the weekly market is measured as a continuous variable, measured in minutes. The variable representing minutes 30 to plot is a dummy variable, which equals 1 if the plot is within 30 min from the homestead and 0 otherwise. The two IVs are not expected to affect farm income and food security directly. We checked the validity of the IVs by running the Falsification test and conducting the correlation coefficient analysis (Pizer 2016 ; Liu et al. 2021 ; Ma et al. 2022a ). For the sake of simplicity, we did not report the results.

The average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) is calculated at the third step. This involves comparing the expected outcomes (farm income and food security) of SAP adopters and non-adopters, with and without adoption. Using experimental data, it is easier to establish impacts; however, this study is based on observational cross-sectional data, thus making impact evaluation a bit challenging. The challenge is mainly estimating the counterfactual outcome, i.e. the outcome of SAP adopters if they had not adopted the SAP technology. Following previous studies (Kassie et al. 2015 ; Oparinde 2021 ; Ahmed 2022 ), the study estimates ATT in the actual and the counterfactual scenarios using the following equations:

The outcome variables for SAP adopters with adoption (observed):

The outcome variables for SAP adopters had they decided not to adopt (Counterfactual):

The difference between Eqs. (4a) and (5a) or Eqs. (4b) and (5b) is the ATT. For example, the difference between Eqs. (4a) and (5a) is given as:

Data and variables

The study used data collected by IITA for their Africa RISING project ( https://africa-rising.net/ ) in the three northern regions, namely, Northern, Upper East, and Upper West regions. The data was collected in 2014 from 1284 households operating approximately 5500 plots in 50 rural communities in northern Ghana. The baseline survey used a stratified two-stage sampling technique, and data was collected using Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) supported by Survey CTO software on tablets (Tinonin et al. 2016 ). A structured questionnaire was used to conduct the household interviews. The data covers the various SAP technologies, demographic characteristics, agricultural land holdings, crop outputs and sales, livestock production, farmers’ access to agricultural information and knowledge, access to credit and markets, household assets, and income.

The outcome variables for this study are farm income and food security. The farm income of crops cultivated is obtained by valuing the yield of crops at market price and deducting the costs of all variable inputs. Two variables capture food security, including reduced coping strategy index (rCSI) and household dietary diversity (HDD). Specifically, the rCSI is an index that is measured by scoring coping strategies households use (and frequency of use) when they experience food insecurity. rCSI is an index with five standardized questions on the coping strategies used when faced with food insecurity, the more strategies used, and food insecure the household is. The rCSI score ranges from 0 to 63. A higher level of rCSI score means a higher level of food insecurity. The HDD variable is based on the diverse food groups a household consumes. The higher the score, the more diverse the diet of a household, and the more food secure the household is. Drawing upon previous empirical studies on the adoption of SAPs and related agricultural innovations (Kassie et al. 2013 ; Teklewold et al. 2013a ; Manda et al. 2016 ; Bopp et al. 2019 ; Oyetunde Usman et al. 2020 ; Ma and Wang 2020 ; Ehiakpor et al. 2021 ; Pham et al. 2021 ), we have identified and selected a range of control variables that may influence the adoption of SAPs. These include age, gender, education, marital status, household size, farm size, off-farm income, Africa RISING member, extension, extension satisfaction, number of crops, drought and floods, market access, sandy soil, clay soil, flat slope, moderate to steep, and location dummies.

Results and discussions

Descriptive results.

Table 1 shows the frequency of respondents that used the different categories of SAPs. Of the eight possible categories of SAPs initially specified, 6.78% of farmers in our sample did not adopt any SAPs (I 0 F 0 S 0 ). No farmers adopted imported seed only (I 1 F 0 S 0 ), while only 9 farmers combined improved seed and soil and water conversation as SAPs (I 1 F 0 S 1 ). Only 26 farmers combined improved seed and soil and water conservation as SAPs (I 1 F 1 S 0 ). Therefore, as discussed earlier, we merged I 1 F 1 S 0 and I 1 F 0 S 1 into one group (coded as I 1 F 1 S 0 ), and the empirical analysis includes six groups in total. Table 1 also shows that more than half of the farmers in our sample (51.17%) combined fertilizer and soil and water conservation as SAPs. Around 7% of farmers adopted all the three identified SAPs.

Table 2 presents the variables and statistical descriptions. It shows that the average farm income is 2561 GHS (roughly 400 USD). The average means of rCSI and HDD, which capture food security, are 5.576 and 7.799, respectively. Table 2 also shows that the average age of respondents was about 48 years. Around 84% of respondents are male, and almost 90% of respondents got married. The surveyed households averagely have around 9 persons. About 61% of respondents received advice from extension officers, and 45.6% were satisfied with the extension services. Approximately 70% of respondents had accessed the markets.

Empirical results

Determinants of adoption of sap categories.

Table 3 presents the results estimated by the MNL model, demonstrating the factors that influence smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt different SAPs categories. Farmers without adopting any type of SAPs (i.e. I 0 F 0 S 0 ) are used as the reference group in empirical estimations. Because the primary objective of the MNL model estimations is to calculate the selectivity correction terms rather than explain the determinants of SAP adoption perfectly, we explain the results of Table 3 briefly. The results show gender variable has significant coefficients in columns 2, 4 and 5. Our results appear to suggest that women are more likely to combine improved seeds and fertilizer (I 1 F 1 S 0 ) as SAPs to increase farm productivity. In comparison, men are more likely to rely on fertilizer (I 0 F 1 S 0 ) or combine fertilizer and soil and water conservation technology ( I 0 F 1 S 1 ) as SAPs to improve farm performance. Our findings are largely supported by the previous studies (Smale et al. 2018 ; Paudel et al. 2020 ; Tambo et al. 2021 ), reporting gendered differences in agricultural technology adoption. For example, Smale et al. ( 2018 ) found that women are more likely to adopt improved seeds on the plots they manage in Sudan. Education has positive impacts in all estimated specifications but is only statistically significant in the specification of adopting improved seed and fertilizer (I 1 F 1 S 0 ). Better education enables farmers to be aware of the benefits of SAPs and motivate them to adopt them, especially productivity-enhancing technologies such as improved seed and fertilizer. This finding is consistent with the findings of Kassie et al. ( 2014 ) for Tanzania and Gebremariam and Wünscher ( 2016 ) for Ghana.

The significant coefficients of household size in columns 2 and 6 suggest that larger households are more likely to adopt multiple SAPs (I 1 F 1 S 1 ) but are less likely to adopt single SAP such as fertilizer (I 0 F 1 S 0 ). Larger households usually mean better labour endowments, allowing them to adopt multiple SAPs more easily than small ones. This is consistent with the findings of Kassie et al. ( 2014 ). Off-farm income has positive and significant coefficients in columns 3, 5 and 6. The findings suggest that farmers receiving a higher level of off-farm income are more likely to adopt fertilizer only (I 0 F 1 S 0 ), combine fertilizer and soil and water conservation as SAPs (I 0 F 1 S 1 ), and adopt all three SAPs (I 1 F 1 S 1 ). Additional income from off-farm activities can help release credit constraint issues, allowing farmers to invest in innovative technologies such as SAPs to improve farm performance. In their study for Pakistan, Kousar and Abdulai ( 2016 ) found that participation in off-farm work increases farmers’ adoption of soil conservation measures.

The African RISING member variable has a positive and statistically significant impact on farmers’ fertiliser adoption only (I 0 F 1 S 0 ), the combination of improved seed and fertilizer (I 1 F 1 S 0 ), and the combination of fertilizer and soil and water conservation (I 0 F 1 S 1 ). The importance of farmer-based organisations in promoting the adoption of innovative technologies has been widely discussed in the literature (Zhang et al. 2020 ; Manda et al. 2020b ; Yu et al. 2021 ). For example, Manda et al. ( 2020a , b ) reported that membership in agricultural cooperatives increases the adoption speed of improved maize by 1.6–4.3 years. We show that farmers having access to extension services are more likely to adopt SAPs, including fertilizer only (I 0 F 1 S 0 ), soil and water conservation only (I 0 F 0 S 1 ), and all three SAps (I 1 F 1 S 1 ). In their studies for Nepal, Suvedi et al. ( 2017 ) found that farmers’ participation in extension programs increases their adoption of improved crop varieties. This finding is further confirmed by Nakano et al. ( 2018 ), who found that farmer-to-farmer training through extension programs enhance farmers’ adoption of technologies (e.g., fertilizer and improved bund) in Tanzania. The location dummies are statistically significant in columns 2, 4 and 5. Our findings suggest that relative to farmers living in Upper West (reference group), those residing in Northern and Upper East are more likely to adopt fertilizer only (I 0 F 1 S 0 ) and a combination of fertilizer and soil and water conservation (I 0 F 1 S 1 ), but less likely to adopt the combination of improved seeds and fertilizer (I 1 F 1 S 0 ). Our findings confirm spatial-fixed characteristics (e.g., social-economic conditions, resource endowments, climate conditions, and institutional arrangements) may also affect smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt SAPs and highlight the importance of including them in estimations.

Average treatment effects of SAPs

Table 4 presents the results estimating the treatment effects of SAP adoption on farm income and food security. For the sake of brevity, we do not present and discuss the results estimated by the OLS regression model but are available upon reasonable requests. Our ATT estimate results in Table 4 record differentiated findings regarding the impacts of adopting only one SAP technology on farm income and food security, measured by rCSI score and HDD score. Specifically, adopting only fertilizer (I 0 F 1 S 0 ) significantly reduces rCSI score and improves HDD score. The ATT estimates indicate that fertilizer adoption only (I 0 F 1 S 0 ) decreases rCSI score by 42% and increases the HDD score by 6.5%. We find that fertilizer adoption only (I 0 F 1 S 0 ) decreases farm income. A possible reason could be the improper use of fertilizer by smallholder farmers, such as using lower than recommended amounts of fertilizer; hence they do not achieve the maximum potential output expected.

Adoption of SAP package that combines improved seed and fertilizer (I 1 F 1 S 0 ) improves food security significantly. The ATT estimates show that I 1 F 1 S 0 adoption reduces rCSI score by 45% and increases HDD score by 4%. However, I 1 F 1 S 0 adoption decreases farm income, a finding that is largely consistent with the finding of Ma and Wang ( 2020 ), showing that SAP adoption significantly decreases farm income in China. Adoption of SAP package that combines fertilizer and soil and water conservation (I 0 F 1 S 1 ) increases farm income and improves food security. We show that I 0 F 1 S 1 adoption increases farm income by 12%, reduces rCSI score by 23%, and improves HDD score by 5%.

The ATT estimates show that adopting all the three SAPs (I 1 F 1 S 1 ) positively and statistically impacts farm income and food security. The impact magnitudes of adopting all the three SAPs are larger than that of adopting single or two SAPs. Specifically, the I 1 F 1 S 1 adoption increases farm income by 23%, reduces rCSI score by 53%, and improves HDD score by 14%. Our results are largely supported by the previous studies (Teklewold et al. 2013a ; Manda et al. 2016 ; Oduniyi and Chagwiza 2021 ), pointing out that adopting multiple SAPs has larger impacts on welfare measures than adopting only one or two SAPs. For example, Teklewold et al. ( 2013b ) showed that multiple SAP adoption significantly increases household income in Ethiopia. Oduniyi and Chagwiza ( 2021 ) found that adopting sustainable land management practices increases the food security of smallholder farmers in South Africa.

Conclusions and policy implications

Many institutions have credited sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) as a viable solution that helps tackle the worlds’ feeding problems and worsening environmental issues. This study used a multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) to investigate factors that affect smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt different categories of SAPs and estimate the effects of the adoption on farm income and food security. In particular, we used two measures, including rCSI score and HDD score, to capture food security. We estimated the data collected by IITA for their Africa RISING project in Ghana.

The MNL results showed that farmers’ decisions to adopt SAPs are influenced by the social demographics of the households (e.g., gender, education, marital status, and household size), plot-level characteristics (e.g., number of crops, soil types, and topography), extension services, and locations. The study also recorded differentiated findings regarding the impacts of adopting only one or two SAPs on farm income and food security. For example, adopting only fertilizer significantly reduces rCSI score and improves HDD score, but it unexpectedly decreases farm income. Adoption of SAP package that combines improved seed and fertilizer significantly improves food security measures, but it also decreases farm income. Nevertheless, we found that adopting all the three SAPs positively and statistically impacts farm income and food security. The impact magnitudes of adopting all the three SAPs are larger than that of adopting single or two SAPs.

The study highlights that policies that improve the extension agents to farmer ratio should be pursued since access to extension positively influenced the adoption of SAPs. The satisfaction with the extension agent variable positively influenced the adoption of all the SAPs. This highlights the need to improve the quality of extension service to minimize the risk of adoption due to inadequate information transfer. Membership in farmer-based organizations (FBOs) such as Africa RISING positively influenced the adoption of different packages of SAPs. Therefore farmers should be encouraged to join FBOs, and similar organizations should be established or strengthened to enhance the dissemination of information regarding SAPs. Policies to improve farmer income and food security should advocate for the comprehensive adoption of all the SAPs packages and provide incentives to motivate the adoption of all SAPs packages.

Availability of data and materials

Data is available from the leading author upon the reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from NZAID scholarship from MFAT and Lincoln university research fund. We want to thank IITA and IFPRI for making the data from the Africa RISING Project readily accessible. We also want to thank Dr. Gideon Danso-Abbeam for his helpful comments and suggestions.

No funding was received in the carrying out of this research.

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Sustainable agriculture

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Achieving food security is possible, if we better understand the complexity of the agricultural system and re-design practices accordingly.

Early in September, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report was released through a joint press conference at the FAO headquarters in Rome. The analysis ( The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World FAO; 2018) is the outcome of a close collaboration between five United Nations agencies — the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization — and one of the key messages from the report is, perhaps not surprisingly, alarming: the world is not on track to meet the ‘Zero Hunger’ Sustainable Development Goal, SDG 2.

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Drawing attention to the drivers of hunger and malnutrition, the report includes updated estimates of a number of indicators related to food security and its health implications, including the number of hungry people in the world, data on child stunting, adult obesity, and childhood obesity among others.

The report, which uses data from 2017, shows how hunger has increased worldwide for the third consecutive year, and childhood malnutrition has not improved or, even worse, in some cases has declined. Countries must take urgent action to meet SDG 2 by 2030.

This year’s edition of the annual report focuses on the need to build climate resilience for food security and nutrition. Acknowledging the dependency of our nutritional needs on the natural environment should indeed be a critical component of any food-policy strategy.

More specifically, the sustainability of the food system should be at the heart of the international food-security debate. Despite increasing hunger globally, the demand of food has been rising rapidly and has had a significant environmental cost: degradation of agricultural land, pollution of rivers and aquifers due to agro-chemicals, increased freshwater consumption, greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture and land-use change, loss of agro-biodiversity and other negative consequences. All of these environmental impacts severely undermine our ability to continue to feed a growing population and ultimately will jeopardize the opportunity to meet SDG 2, unless more-sustainable food-production practices are embraced globally.

Enhanced agricultural productivity (intensification) has been a major response to the growing food demand, but intensification could be done better. In an Analysis by Pretty et al. published in our August issue, the authors underline how environmental considerations in agriculture intensification have been traditionally limited to minimizing negative impacts. Instead, with their analyses, they show that, for example, a move away from fertilizers to nitrogen-fixing legumes as part of rotations or intercropping could improve intensification without increasing environmental stress. Their point is that agriculture intensification can be sustainable if the system is adequately re-designed and if all players involved accept that no new designed system will succeed forever.

Increasing food production can impact conservation strategies — another issue likely to have long-term negative consequences for our ability to provide healthy levels of nutrition to all. Keesing and colleagues, in an Article in this issue, show however that a conflict between the two shouldn’t be the case. They analyse the potential trade-offs between management for wildlife and for livestock in an East African savannah, and find potential ecological and economic benefits from integrating the two.

However, even while considering effective strategies, it remains clear that human activities do affect biodiversity around the world, and that applies to agricultural practices as much as to other activities. In a Brief Communication in the August issue, Mehrabi et al. analyse the implications of the conservationists’ proposal to give back half the Earth’s surface to nature (the ‘Half-Earth’ project). Among other results, they find that, depending on the landscape conservation strategy, 23–25% of non-food calories and 3–29% of food calories from crops globally could be lost if the proposal were implemented. They do show that the trade-offs between agriculture and the Half-Earth proposal will be much lower if landscapes remain mosaics of shared land uses.

So, what are we left with? We can certainly improve agricultural practices as discussed earlier in this Editorial, and increase their sustainability. Will it be enough to achieve our societal goals? Perhaps we need to also look at our individual behaviour. We know that we need to manage our dependence on nature sustainably. And sustainable management hinges on deep understanding of human–nature relationships. Behavioural sciences can bring invaluable insights to our ways of mapping the complexity of such relationships. Going back to the sustainability of agricultural practices, the different ways in which individuals’ mindsets represent a system and the causal relationships among its components (mental models) can capture more or less complexity, as discussed in an Article by Levy and colleagues in our August issue. The authors show that, for example, mental models characterized by direct, unidirectional causation allow fast decision-making but might fail to anticipate consequences of actions in the presence of strong interdependences. Understanding these cognitive mechanisms has important implications for individual and collective decision-making about sustainable agriculture. And that is crucial to better orient food-security strategies. With the right set of changes in practices and interventions, informed by academic research and practice, there is still hope to achieve SDG 2 on time.

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Sustainable agricultural practices for food security and ecosystem services

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The notion of food security is a global phenomenon that impinges on every human. Efforts to increase productivity and yields have historically degraded the environment and reduced biodiversity and ecosystem services, with the significant impact on the poor. Sustainable agriculture—farming in sustainable ways based on an understanding of ecosystem services—is a practical option for achieving global food security while minimizing further environmental degradation. Sustainable agricultural systems offer ecosystem services, such as pollination, biological pest control, regulation of soil and water quality, maintenance of soil structure and fertility, carbon sequestration and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient cycling, hydrological services, and biodiversity conservation. In this review, we discuss the potential of sustainable agriculture for achieving global food security alongside healthy ecosystems that provide other valuable services to humankind. Too often, agricultural production systems are considered separate from other natural ecosystems, and insufficient attention has been paid to how services can flow to and from agricultural production systems to surrounding ecosystems. This review also details the trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services, highlights current knowledge gaps, and proposes areas for future research.

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Rehman, A., Farooq, M., Lee, DJ. et al. Sustainable agricultural practices for food security and ecosystem services. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29 , 84076–84095 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23635-z

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Climate change resilient agricultural practices: A learning experience from indigenous communities over India

Affiliation South Asian Forum for Environment, India

* E-mail: [email protected] , [email protected]

Affiliation Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Lausanne, Switzerland

• Amitava Aich, 
• Dipayan Dey, 
• Arindam Roy

Published: July 28, 2022

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000022
• Reader Comments

The impact of climate change on agricultural practices is raising question marks on future food security of billions of people in tropical and subtropical regions. Recently introduced, climate-smart agriculture (CSA) techniques encourage the practices of sustainable agriculture, increasing adaptive capacity and resilience to shocks at multiple levels. However, it is extremely difficult to develop a single framework for climate change resilient agricultural practices for different agrarian production landscape. Agriculture accounts for nearly 30% of Indian gross domestic product (GDP) and provide livelihood of nearly two-thirds of the population of the country. Due to the major dependency on rain-fed irrigation, Indian agriculture is vulnerable to rainfall anomaly, pest invasion, and extreme climate events. Due to their close relationship with environment and resources, indigenous people are considered as one of the most vulnerable community affected by the changing climate. In the milieu of the climate emergency, multiple indigenous tribes from different agroecological zones over India have been selected in the present study to explore the adaptive potential of indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK)-based agricultural practices against climate change. The selected tribes are inhabitants of Eastern Himalaya (Apatani), Western Himalaya (Lahaulas), Eastern Ghat (Dongria-Gondh), and Western Ghat (Irular) representing rainforest, cold desert, moist upland, and rain shadow landscape, respectively. The effect of climate change over the respective regions was identified using different Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario, and agricultural practices resilient to climate change were quantified. Primary results indicated moderate to extreme susceptibility and preparedness of the tribes against climate change due to the exceptionally adaptive ITK-based agricultural practices. A brief policy has been prepared where knowledge exchange and technology transfer among the indigenous tribes have been suggested to achieve complete climate change resiliency.

Citation: Aich A, Dey D, Roy A (2022) Climate change resilient agricultural practices: A learning experience from indigenous communities over India. PLOS Sustain Transform 1(7): e0000022. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000022

Editor: Ashwani Kumar, Dr. H.S. Gour Central University, INDIA

Copyright: © 2022 Aich et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1 Introduction

Traditional agricultural systems provide sustenance and livelihood to more than 1 billion people [ 1 – 3 ]. They often integrate soil, water, plant, and animal management at a landscape scale, creating mosaics of different land uses. These landscape mosaics, some of which have existed for hundreds of years, are maintained by local communities through practices based on traditional knowledge accumulated over generations [ 4 ]. Climate change threatens the livelihood of rural communities [ 5 ], often in combination with pressures coming from demographic change, insecure land tenure and resource rights, environmental degradation, market failures, inappropriate policies, and the erosion of local institutions [ 6 – 8 ]. Empowering local communities and combining farmers’ and external knowledge have been identified as some of the tools for meeting these challenges [ 9 ]. However, their experiences have received little attention in research and among policy makers [ 10 ].

Traditional agricultural landscapes as linked social–ecological systems (SESs), whose resilience is defined as consisting of 3 characteristics: the capacity to (i) absorb shocks and maintain function; (ii) self-organize; (iii) learn and adapt [ 11 ]. Resilience is not about an equilibrium of transformation and persistence. Instead, it explains how transformation and persistence work together, allowing living systems to assimilate disturbance, innovation, and change, while at the same time maintaining characteristic structures and processes [ 12 ]. Agriculture is one of the most sensitive systems influenced by changes in weather and climate patterns. In recent years, climate change impacts have been become the greatest threats to global food security [ 13 , 14 ]. Climate change results a decline in food production and consequently rising food prices [ 15 , 16 ]. Indigenous people are good observers of changes in weather and climate and acclimatize through several adaptive and mitigation strategies [ 17 , 18 ].

Traditional agroecosystems are receiving rising attention as sustainable alternatives to industrial farming [ 19 ]. They are getting increased considerations for biodiversity conservation and sustainable food production in changing climate [ 20 ]. Indigenous agriculture systems are diverse, adaptable, nature friendly, and productive [ 21 ]. Higher vegetation diversity in the form of crops and trees escalates the conversion of CO 2 to organic form and consequently reducing global warming [ 22 ]. Mixed cropping not only decreases the risk of crop failure, pest, and disease but also diversifies the food supply [ 23 ]. It is estimated that traditional multiple cropping systems provide 15% to 20% of the world’s food supply [ 1 ]. Agro-forestry, intercropping, crop rotation, cover cropping, traditional organic composting, and integrated crop-animal farming are prominent traditional agricultural practices [ 24 , 25 ].

Traditional agricultural landscapes refer to the landscapes with preserved traditional sustainable agricultural practices and conserved biodiversity [ 26 , 27 ]. They are appreciated for their aesthetic, natural, cultural, historical, and socioeconomic values [ 28 ]. Since the beginning of agriculture, peasants have been continually adjusting their agriculture practices with change in climatic conditions [ 29 ]. Indigenous farmers have a long history of climate change adaptation through making changes in agriculture practices [ 30 ]. Indigenous farmers use several techniques to reduce climate-driven crop failure such as use of drought-tolerant local varieties, polyculture, agro-forestry, water harvesting, and conserving soil [ 31 – 33 ]. Indigenous peasants use various natural indicators to forecast the weather patterns such as changes in the behavior of local flora and fauna [ 34 , 35 ].

The climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approach [ 36 ] has 3 objectives: (i) sustainably enhancing agricultural productivity to support equitable increase in income, food security, and development; (ii) increasing adaptive capacity and resilience to shocks at multiple levels, from farm to national; and (iii) reducing Green House Gases (GHG) emissions and increasing carbon sequestration where possible. Indigenous peoples, whose livelihood activities are most respectful of nature and the environment, suffer immediately, directly, and disproportionately from climate change and its consequences. Indigenous livelihood systems, which are closely linked to access to land and natural resources, are often vulnerable to environmental degradation and climate change, especially as many inhabit economically and politically marginal areas in fragile ecosystems in the countries likely to be worst affected by climate change [ 25 ]. The livelihood of many indigenous and local communities, in particular, will be adversely affected if climate and associated land-use change lead to losses in biodiversity. Indigenous peoples in Asia are particularly vulnerable to changing weather conditions resulting from climate change, including unprecedented strength of typhoons and cyclones and long droughts and prolonged floods [ 15 ]. Communities report worsening food and water insecurity, increases in water- and vector-borne diseases, pest invasion, destruction of traditional livelihoods of indigenous peoples, and cultural ethnocide or destruction of indigenous cultures that are linked with nature and agricultural cycles [ 37 ].

The Indian region is one of the world’s 8 centres of crop plant origin and diversity with 166 food/crop species and 320 wild relatives of crops have originated here (Dr R.S. Rana, personal communication). India has 700 recorded tribal groups with population of 104 million as per 2011 census [ 38 ] and many of them practicing diverse indigenous farming techniques to suit the needs of various respective ecoclimatic zones. The present study has been designed as a literature-based analytical review of such practices among 4 different ethnic groups in 4 different agroclimatic and geographical zones of India, viz, the Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh, the Dongria Kondh of Niamgiri hills of Odisha, the Irular in the Nilgiris, and the Lahaulas of Himachal Pradesh to evaluating the following objectives: (i) exploring comparatively the various indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK)-based farming practices in the different agroclimatic regions; (ii) climate resiliency of those practices; and (iii) recommending policy guidelines.

2 Methodology

2.1 systematic review of literature.

An inventory of various publications in the last 30 years on the agro biodiversity, ethno botany, traditional knowledge, indigenous farming practices, and land use techniques of 4 different tribes of India in 4 different agroclimatic and geographical zones viz, the Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh, the Dongria Kondh of Niamgiri hills of Odisha, the Irular in the Nilgiris, and the Lahaulas of Himachal Pradesh has been done based on key word topic searches in journal repositories like Google Scholar. A small but significant pool of led and pioneering works has been identified, category, or subtopics are developed most striking observations noted.

2.2 Understanding traditional practices and climate resiliency

The most striking traditional agricultural practices of the 4 major tribes were noted. A comparative analysis of different climate resilient traditional practices of the 4 types were made based on existing information available via literature survey. Effects of imminent dangers of possible extreme events and impact of climate change on these 4 tribes were estimated based on existing facts and figures. A heat map representing climate change resiliency of these indigenous tribes has been developed using R-programming language, and finally, a reshaping policy framework for technology transfers and knowledge sharing among the tribes for successfully helping them to achieve climate resiliency has been suggested.

2.3 Study area

Four different agroclimatic zones and 4 different indigenous groups were chosen for this particular study. The Apatanis live in the small plateau called Zero valley ( Fig 1 ) surrounded by forested mountains of Eastern Himalaya in the Lower Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh. It is located at 27.63° N, 93.83° E at an altitude ranging between 1,688 m to 2,438 m. Rainfall is heavy and can be up to 400 mm in monsoon months. Temperature varies from moderate in summer to very cold in the winter months. Their approximate population is around 12,806 (as per 2011 census), and Tibetan and Ahom sources indicate that they have been inhabiting the area from at least the 15th century and probably much earlier ( https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5893/ ).

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The base map is prepared using QGIS software.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000022.g001

The Lahaulas are the inhabitants of Lahaul valley ( Fig 1 ) that is located in the western Himalayan region of Lahaul and Spiti and lies between the Pir Panjal in the south and Zanskar in the north. It is located between 76° 46′ and 78° 41′ east longitudes and between 31° 44′ and 32° 59′ north altitudes. The Lahaul valley receives scanty rainfalls, almost nil in summer, and its only source of moisture is snow during the winter. Temperature is generally cold. The combined population of Lahaul and Spiti is 31,564 (as per 2011 census).

The Dongria Kondh is one of the officially designated primitive tribal group (PTG) in the Eastern Ghat region of the state Orissa. They are the original inhabitants of Niyamgiri hilly region ( Fig 1 ) that extends to Rayagada, Koraput, and Kalahandi districts of south Orissa. Dongria Kondhs have an estimated population of about 10,000 and are distributed in around 120 settlements, all at an altitude up to 1,500 above the sea level [ 39 ]. It is located between 190 26′ to 190 43′ N latitude and 830 18′ to 830 28′ E longitudes with a maximum elevation of 1,516 meters. The Niyamgiri hill range abounds with streams. More than 100 streams flows from the Niyamgiri hills and 36 streams originate from Niyamgiri plateau (just below the Niyam Raja), and most of the streams are perennial. Niyamgiri hills have been receiving high rainfall since centuries and drought is unheard of in this area.

The Irular tribes inhabit the Palamalai hills and Nilgiris of Western Ghats ( Fig 1 ). Their total population may be 200,000 (as per 2011 census). The Palamali Hills is situated in the Salem district of Tamil Nadu, lies between 11° 14.46′ and 12° 53.30′ north latitude and between 77° 32.52′ to 78° 35.05′ east longitude. It is located 1,839 m from the mean sea level (MSL) and more over the climate of the district is whole dry except north east monsoon seasons [ 40 , 41 ]. Nilgiri district is hilly, lying at an elevation of 1,000 to 2,600 m above MSL and divided between the Nilgiri plateau and the lower, smaller Wayanad plateau. The district lies at the juncture of the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats. Its latitudinal and longitudinal location is 130 km (latitude: 11° 12 N to 11° 37 N) by 185 km (longitude 76° 30 E to 76° 55 E). It has cooler and wetter climate with high average rainfall.

3 Results and discussion

3.1 indigenous agricultural practices in 4 different agro-biodiversity hotspots.

Previous literatures on the agricultural practices of indigenous people in 4 distinct agro-biodiversity hotspots did not necessarily focus on climate resilient agriculture. The authors of these studies had elaborately discussed about the agro-biodiversity, farming techniques, current scenario, and economical sustainability in past and present context of socioecological paradigm. However, no studies have been found to address direct climate change resiliency of traditional indigenous agricultural practices over Indian subcontinent to the best of our knowledge. The following section will primarily focus on the agricultural practices of indigenous tribes and how they can be applied on current eco-agricultural scenario in the milieu of climate change over different agricultural macroenvironments in the world.

3.1.1 Apatani tribes (Eastern Himalaya).

The Apatanis practice both wet and terrace cultivation and paddy cum fish culture with finger millet on the bund (small dam). Due to these special attributes of sustainable farming systems and people’s traditional ecological knowledge in sustaining ecosystems, the plateau is in the process of declaring as World Heritage centre [ 42 – 44 ]. The Apatanis have developed age-old valley rice cultivation has often been counted to be one of the advanced tribal communities in the northeastern region of India [ 45 ]. It has been known for its rich economy for decades and has good knowledge of land, forest, and water management [ 46 ]. The wet rice fields are irrigated through well-managed canal systems [ 47 ]. It is managed by diverting numerous streams originated in the forest into single canal and through canal each agriculture field is connected with bamboo or pinewood pipe.

The entire cultivation procedure by the Apatani tribes are organic and devoid of artificial soil supplements. The paddy-cum-fish agroecosystem are positioned strategically to receive all the run off nutrients from the hills and in addition to that, regular appliance of livestock manure, agricultural waste, kitchen waste, and rice chaff help to maintain soil fertility [ 48 ]. Irrigation, cultivation, and harvesting of paddy-cum-fish agricultural system require cooperation, experience, contingency plans, and discipline work schedule. Apatani tribes have organized tasks like construction and maintenance of irrigation, fencing, footpath along the field, weeding, field preparation, transplantation, harvesting, and storing. They are done by the different groups of farmers and supervised by community leaders (Gaon Burha/Panchayat body). Scientific and place-based irrigation solution using locally produced materials, innovative paddy-cum-fish aquaculture, community participation in collective farming, and maintaining agro-biodiversity through regular usage of indigenous landraces have potentially distinguished the Apatani tribes in the context of agro-biodiversity regime on mountainous landscape.

3.1.2 Lahaula (Western Himalaya).

The Lahaul tribe has maintained a considerable agro-biodiversity and livestock altogether characterizing high level of germ plasm conservation [ 49 ]. Lahaulas living in the cold desert region of Lahaul valley are facultative farmers as they able to cultivate only for 6 months (June to November) as the region remained ice covered during the other 6 months of the year. Despite of the extreme weather conditions, Lahaulas are able to maintain high level of agro-biodiversity through ice-water harvesting, combinatorial cultivation of traditional and cash crops, and mixed agriculture–livestock practices. Indigenous practices for efficient use of water resources in such cold arid environment with steep slopes are distinctive. Earthen channels (Nullah or Kuhi) for tapping melting snow water are used for irrigation. Channel length run anywhere from a few meters to more than 5 km. Ridges and furrows transverse to the slope retard water flow and soil loss [ 50 ]. Leaching of soil nutrients due to the heavy snow cover gradually turns the fertile soil into unproductive one [ 51 ]. The requirement of high quantity organic manure is met through composting livestock manure, night soil, kitchen waste, and forest leaf litter in a specially designed community composting room. On the advent of summer, compost materials are taken into the field for improving the soil quality.

Domesticated Yaks ( Bos grunniens ) is crossed with local cows to produce cold tolerant offspring of several intermediate species like Gari, Laru, Bree, and Gee for drought power and sources of protein. Nitrogen fixing trees like Seabuckthrone ( Hippophae rhamnoides ) are also cultivated along with the crops to meet the fuels and fodder requires for the long winter period. Crop rotation is a common practice among the Lahaulas. Domesticated wild crop, local variety, and cash crops are rotated to ensure the soil fertility and maintaining the agro-biodiversity. Herbs and indigenous medicinal plants are cultivated simultaneously with food crops and cash crop to maximize the farm output. A combinatorial agro-forestry and agro-livestock approach of the Lahaulas have successfully able to generate sufficient revenue and food to sustain 6 months of snow-covered winter in the lap of western Himalayan high-altitude landscape. This also helps to maintain the local agro-biodiversity of the immensely important ecoregion.

3.1.3 Dongria Kondh (Eastern Ghat).

Dongria Kondh tribes, living at the semiarid hilly range of Eastern Ghats, have been applying sustainable agro-forestry techniques and a unique mixed crop system for several centuries since their establishment in the tropical dry deciduous hilly forest ecoregion. The forest is a source for 18 different non-timber forest products like mushroom, bamboo, fruits, vegetables, seeds, leaf, grass, and medicinal products. The Kondh people sustainably uses the forest natural capital such a way that maintain the natural stock and simultaneously ensure the constant flow of products. Around 70% of the resources have been consumed by the tribes, whereas 30% of the resources are being sold to generate revenue for further economic and agro-forest sustainability [ 52 ]. The tribe faces moderate to acute food grain crisis during the post-sowing monsoon period and they completely rely upon different alternative food products from the forest. The system has been running flawlessly until recent time due to the aggressive mining activity, natural resources depleted significantly, and the food security have been compromised [ 53 ].

However, the Kondh farmer have developed a very interesting agrarian technique where they simultaneously grow 80 varieties of different crops ranging from paddy, millet, leaves, pulses, tubers, vegetables, sorghum, legumes, maize, oil-seeds, etc. [ 54 ]. In order to grow so many crops in 1 dongor (the traditional farm lands of Dongria Kondhs on lower hill slopes), the sowing period and harvesting period extends up to 5 months from April till the end of August and from October to February basing upon climatic suitability, respectively.

Genomic profiling of millets like finger millet, pearl millet, and sorghum suggest that they are climate-smart grain crops ideal for environments prone to drought and extreme heat [ 55 ]. Even the traditional upland paddy varieties they use are less water consuming, so are resilient to drought-like conditions, and are harvested between 60 and 90 days of sowing. As a result, the possibility of complete failure of a staple food crop like millets and upland paddy grown in a dongor is very low even in drought-like conditions [ 56 ].

The entire agricultural method is extremely organic in nature and devoid of any chemical pesticide, which reduces the cost of farming and at the same time help to maintain environmental sustainability [ 57 ].

3.1.4 Irular tribes (Western Ghat).

Irulas or Irular tribes, inhabiting at the Palamalai mountainous region of Western Ghats and also Nilgiri hills are practicing 3 crucial age-old traditional agricultural techniques, i.e., indigenous pest management, traditional seed and food storage methods, and age-old experiences and thumb rules on weather prediction. Similar to the Kondh tribes, Irular tribes also practice mixed agriculture. Due to the high humidity in the region, the tribes have developed and rigorously practices storage distinct methods for crops, vegetables, and seeds. Eleven different techniques for preserving seeds and crops by the Irular tribes are recorded till now. They store pepper seeds by sun drying for 2 to 3 days and then store in the gunny bags over the platform made of bamboo sticks to avoid termite attack. Paddy grains are stored with locally grown aromatic herbs ( Vitex negundo and Pongamia pinnata ) leaves in a small mud-house. Millets are buried under the soil (painted with cow dung slurry) and can be stored up to 1 year. Their storage structure specially designed to allow aeration protect insect and rodent infestation [ 58 ]. Traditional knowledge of cross-breeding and selection helps the Irular enhancing the genetic potential of the crops and maintaining indigenous lines of drought resistant, pest tolerant, disease resistant sorghum, millet, and ragi [ 59 , 60 ].

Irular tribes are also good observer of nature and pass the traditional knowledge of weather phenomenon linked with biological activity or atmospheric condition. Irular use the behavioral fluctuation of dragonfly, termites, ants, and sheep to predict the possibility of rainfall. Atmospheric phenomenon like ring around the moon, rainbow in the evening, and morning cloudiness are considered as positive indicator of rainfall, whereas dense fog is considered as negative indicator. The Irular tribes also possess and practice traditional knowledge on climate, weather, forecasting, and rainfall prediction [ 58 ]. The Irular tribes also gained extensive knowledge in pest management as 16 different plant-based pesticides have been documented that are all completely biological in nature. The mode of actions of these indigenous pesticides includes anti-repellent, anti-feedent, stomach poison, growth inhibitor, and contact poisoning. All of these pesticides are prepared from common Indian plants extract like neem, chili, tobacco, babul, etc.

The weather prediction thumb rules are not being validated with real measurement till now but understanding of the effect of forecasting in regional weather and climate pattern in agricultural practices along with biological pest control practices and seed conservation have made Irular tribe unique in the context of global agro-biodiversity conservation.

3.2 Climate change risk in indigenous agricultural landscape

The effect of climate change over the argo-ecological landscape of Lahaul valley indicates high temperature stress as increment of number of warm days, 0.16°C average temperature and 1.1 to 2.5°C maximum temperature are observed in last decades [ 61 , 62 ]. Decreasing trend of rainfall during monsoon and increasing trend of consecutive dry days in last several decades strongly suggest future water stress in the abovementioned region over western Himalaya. Studies on the western Himalayan region suggest presence of climate anomaly like retraction of glaciers, decreasing number of snowfall days, increasing incident of pest attack, and extreme events on western Himalayan region [ 63 – 65 ].

Apatani tribes in eastern Himalayan landscape are also experiencing warmer weather with 0.2°C increment in maximum and minimum temperature [ 66 ]. Although no significant trend in rainfall amount has been observed, however 11% decrease in rainy day and 5% to 15% decrease in rainfall amount by 2030 was speculated using regional climate model [ 67 ]. Increasing frequency of extreme weather events like flashfloods, cloudburst, landslide, etc. and pathogen attack in agricultural field will affect the sustainable agro-forest landscape of Apatani tribes. Similar to the Apatani and Lahaulas tribes, Irular and Dongria Kondh tribes are also facing climate change effect via increase in maximum and minimum temperature and decrease in rainfall and increasing possibility of extreme weather event [ 68 , 69 ]. In addition, the increasing number of forest fire events in the region is also an emerging problem due to the dryer climate [ 70 ].

Higher atmospheric and soil temperature in the crop growing season have direct impact on plant physiological processes and therefore has a declining effect on crop productivity, seedling mortality, and pollen viability [ 71 ]. Anomaly in precipitation amount and pattern also affect crop development by reducing plant growth [ 72 ]. Extreme events like drought and flood could alter soil fertility, reduce water holding capacity, increase nutrient run off, and negatively impact seed and crop production [ 73 ]. Agricultural pest attack increases at higher temperature as it elevates their food consumption capability and reproduction rate [ 74 ].

3.3 Climate resiliency through indigenous agro-forestry

Three major climate-resilient and environmentally friendly approaches in all 4 tribes can broadly classified as (i) organic farming; (ii) soil and water conservation and community farming; and (iii) maintain local agro-biodiversity. The practices under these 3 regimes have been listed in Table 1 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000022.t001

Human and animal excreta, plant residue, ashes, decomposed straw, husk, and other by-products are used to make organic fertilizer and compost material that helps to maintain soil fertility in the extreme orographic landscape with high run-off. Community farming begins with division of labour and have produced different highly specialized skilled individual expert in different farming techniques. It needs to be remembered that studied tribes live in an area with complex topological feature and far from advance technological/logistical support. Farming in such region is extremely labour intensive, and therefore, community farming has become essential for surviving. All 4 tribes have maintained their indigenous land races of different crops, cereal, vegetables, millets, oil-seeds, etc. that give rises to very high agro-biodiversity in all 4 regions. For example, Apatanis cultivate 106 species of plants with 16 landraces of indigenous rice and 4 landraces of indigenous millet [ 75 ]. Similarly, 24 different crops, vegetables, and medicinal plants are cultivated by the Lahaulas, and 50 different indigenous landraces are cultivated by Irular and Dongria Kondh tribes.

The combination of organic firming and high indigenous agro-biodiversity create a perfect opportunity for biological control of pests. Therefore, other than Irular tribe, all 3 tribes depend upon natural predator like birds and spiders, feeding on the indigenous crop, for predation of pests. Irular tribes developed multiple organic pest management methods from extract of different common Indian plants. Apatani and Lahaulas incorporate fish and livestock into their agricultural practices, respectively, to create a circular approach to maximize the utilization of waste material produced. At a complex topographic high-altitude landscape where nutrient run-off is very high, the practices of growing plants with animals also help to maintain soil fertility. Four major stresses due to the advancement of climate change have been identified in previous section, and climate change resiliency against these stresses has been graphically presented in Fig 2 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000022.g002

Retraction of the glaciers and direct physiological impact on the livestock due to the temperature stress have made the agricultural practices of the Lahaula’s vulnerable to climate change. However, Irular and Dongria Kondh tribes are resilient to the temperature stress due to their heat-resistant local agricultural landraces, and Apatanis will remain unaffected due to their temperate climate and vast forest cover. Dongria Kondh tribe will successfully tackle the water stress due to their low-water farming techniques and simultaneous cultivation of multiple crops that help to retain the soil moisture by reducing evaporation. Hundreds of perennial streams of Nyamgiri hills are also sustainably maintained and utilised by the Dongria Kondhs along with the forests, which gives them enough subsistence in form of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). However, although Apatani and Lahuala tribe extensively reuse and recirculate water in their field but due to the higher water requirement of paddy-cum-fish and paddy-cum-livestock agriculture, resiliency would be little less compared to Dongria Kondh.

Presence of vast forest cover, very well-structured irrigation system, contour agriculture and layered agricultural field have provided resiliency to the Apatani’s from extreme events like flash flood, landslides, and cloud burst. Due to their seed protection practices and weather prediction abilities, Irular tribe also show resiliency to the extreme events. However, forest fire and flash flood risk in both Eastern Ghat and Western Ghat have been increased and vegetation has significantly decreased in recent past. High risk of flash flood, land slide, avalanches, and very low vegetation coverage have made the Lahaulas extremely vulnerable to extreme events. Robust pest control methods of Irular tribe and age-old practices of intercropping, mixed cropping, and sequence cropping of the Dongria Kondh tribe will resist pest attack in near future.

3.4 Reshaping policy

Temperature stress, water stress, alien pest attack, and increasing risk of extreme events are pointed out as the major risks in the above described 4 indigenous tribes. However, every tribe has shown their own climate resiliency in their traditional agrarian practices, and therefore, a technology transfers and knowledge sharing among the tribes would successfully help to achieve the climate resilient closure. The policy outcome may be summarizing as follows:

• Designing, structuring and monitoring of infrastructural network of Apatani and Lahaul tribes (made by bamboo in case of Apatanis and Pine wood and stones in case of Lahaulas) for waster harvesting should be more rugged and durable to resilient against increasing risk of flash flood and cloud burst events.
• Water recycling techniques like bunds, ridges, and furrow used by Apatani and Lahaul tribes could be adopted by Irular and Dongria Kondh tribes as Nilgiri and Koraput region will face extreme water stress in coming decades.
• Simultaneous cultivation of multiple crops by the Dongria Kondh tribe could be acclimated by the other 3 tribes as this practice is not only drought resistance but also able to maximize the food security of the population.
• Germplasm storage and organic pest management knowledge by the Irular tribes could be transferred to the other 3 tribes to tackle the post-extreme event situations and alien pest attack, respectively.
• Overall, it is strongly recommended that the indigenous knowledge of agricultural practices needs to be conserved. Government and educational institutions need to focus on harvesting the traditional knowledge by the indigenous community.

3.5 Limitation

One of the major limitations of the study is lack of significant number of quantifiable literature/research articles about indigenous agricultural practices over Indian subcontinent. No direct study assessing risk of climate change among the targeted agroecological landscapes has been found to the best of our knowledge. Therefore, the current study integrates socioeconomic status of indigenous agrarian sustainability and probable climate change risk in the present milieu of climate emergency of 21st century. Uncertainty in the current climate models and the spatiotemporal resolution of its output is also a minor limitation as the study theoretically correlate and proposed reshaped policy by using the current and future modeled agro-meteorological parameters.

4. Conclusions

In the present study, an in-depth analysis of CSA practices among the 4 indigenous tribes spanning across different agro-biodiversity hotspots over India was done, and it was observed that every indigenous community is more or less resilient to the adverse effect of climate change on agriculture. Thousands years of traditional knowledge has helped to develop a unique resistance against climate change among the tribes. However, the practices are not well explored through the eyes of modern scientific perspective, and therefore, might goes extinct through the course of time. A country-wide study on the existing indigenous CSA practices is extremely important to produce a database and implementation framework that will successfully help to resist the climate change effect on agrarian economy of tropical countries. Perhaps the most relevant aspect of the study is the realization that economically and socially backward farmers cope with and even prepare for climate change by minimizing crop failure through increased use of drought tolerant local varieties, water harvesting, mixed cropping, agro-forestry, soil conservation practices, and a series of other traditional techniques.

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Essay on Sustainable Agriculture

Introduction: what is sustainable agriculture, importance of sustainable agriculture, population growth, per capita food consumption, sustainable agriculture and technology, green politics, conclusion of sustainable agriculture.

Bibliography

Sustainable agriculture has dominated the sociological understanding of the rural world largely. Following the enthusiasm around the concept as a means of eradication of poverty and turning the economy to a “resource-efficient, low carbon Green Economy” 1 . Global population, and consequently consumption has increased.

However, technology development has matched the demand for food in terms of food production, but the distribution of food is not evenly distributed. This has brought forth the question of the possibility of supplying adequate food to the ever-growing global population.

Further, the challenges posed by depleting non-renewable sources of energy, rising costs, and climate change has brought the issue related to sustainability of food production and the related social and economic impact of the food production into forefront. This paper outlines the meaning and technology related to sustainable agriculture and tries to gauge its impact as a possible solution to the impending food crisis.

Sustainable agriculture is a process of farming using eco-friendly methods understanding and maintaining the relationship between the organisms and environment. In this process of agriculture and animal husbandry are combined to form a simultaneous process and practice. In other words, sustainable agriculture is an amalgamation of three main elements viz. ecological health, profitability, and propagating equality.

The concept of sustainability rests on the principle of not wasting any resources that may become useful to the future generation. Therefore, the main idea of sustainability rests on stewardship of individual and natural resources. Before understanding the technology involved in sustainable agriculture, it is important to know why we need it in the first place.

The rise in population growth and urbanization of people has led to a dietary change of the world population, which now rests more on animal protein 2 . Therefore understanding the demographic changes in the world population has become an important parameter to judge the future demand for food.

As population growth rate is the key variable that affects the demand for food, therefore understanding the number of people increasing worldwide is important. According to the UNDP results, the annual population growth rate had declined from 2.2% in 1962 to 1.1% in 2010, however, this increase to indicate an increase of 75 million people 3 .

However, this increase in population is not equitably distributed as some areas such as Africa, Latin America, and Asia face a growth rate of 2% while others such as the erstwhile Soviet bloc countries have a negative rate.

According to the UNDP predictions, population worldwide is expected to increase to 9 billion in 2050 from the present 7 billion 4 . Therefore, the uncertain growth in population is expected to affect food demand and therefore food production.

Undernourishment is a prevalent problem in the developing world, wherein almost 20% of the developing world that is more than 5 billion people is undernourished.

Further, in emerging economies, food consumption is increasing with increased preference for animal protein such as meat, dairy products, and egg. Therefore, the growth of consumption of animal protein has increased the necessity of grazing of livestock, therefore, increasing further pressure on the food supply.

It is believed that the increase in the demand for food due to the increase in global population and change in dietary habit of the population. In the past, the demand for food and the rate of production has remained at par, but the unequal distribution of food has led to the major problem in food supply and starvation in various parts of the world.

Another problem that food production in the future faces is the constraint of non-renewable natural resources. The most critical resources, which are becoming scant for the future generations are –

• Land : Availability of land globally to cultivate food has grown marginally due to the increase in global population. The availability of land available per person to grow food has declined from 1.30 hectares in 1967 to 0.72 hectares in 2007 5 . Therefore, a clear dearth in agricultural land is a deterrent to future agriculture.
• Water : The world comprises of 70% freshwater resources, available from river and groundwater. Deficiency of freshwater has been growing as usage of water has increased more than twice the rate of population growth 6 . As water is required for irrigation purposes, water availability to is not equally distributed around the world. Therefore, reduced water supply would limit the per capita production of food.
• Energy : Globally, the scarcity of the non-renewable resources of energy is another concern. The global demand for energy is expected to double by 2050, consequently increasing energy prices 7 . Therefore, food production for the future will have to devise a technology based on renewable sources of energy.

The question of sustainability in agriculture arose due to some pressing issues that have limited the utilization of erstwhile processes and technologies for food production. However, it should be noted that sustainable agriculture does not prescribe any set rule or technology for the production process, rather shows a way towards sustainability 8 .

Sustainable agriculture uses best management practice by adhering to target-oriented cultivation. The agriculture process looks at disease-oriented hybrid, pest control through use of biological insecticides and low usage of chemical pesticide and fertilizer. Usually, insect-specific pest control is used, which is biological in nature.

Water given to the crops is through micro-sprinklers which help is directly watering the roots of the plants, and not flooding the field completely. The idea is to manage the agricultural land for both plants and animal husbandry.

For instance, in many southwestern parts of Florida’s citrus orchards, areas meant for water retention and forest areas become a natural habitat for birds and other animals 9 . The process uses integrated pest management that helps in reducing the amount of pesticide used in cultivation.

Sustainable agriculture adopts green technology as a means of reducing wastage of non-renewable energy and increase production. In this respect, the sustainable agricultural technology is linked to the overall developmental objective of the nation and is directly related to solving socio-economic problems of the nation 10 .

The UN report states, “The productivity increases in possible through environment-friendly and profitable technologies.” 11 In order to understand the technology better, one must realize that the soil’s health is crucial for cultivation of crops.

Soil is not just another ingredient for cultivation like pesticides or fertilizers; rather, it is a complex and fragile medium that must be nurtured to ensure higher productivity 12 . Therefore, the health of the soil can be maintained using eco-friendly methods:

Healthy soil, essential to agriculture, is a complex, living medium. The loose but coherent structure of good soil holds moisture and invites airflow. Ants (a) and earthworms (b) mix the soil naturally. Rhizobium bacteria (c) living in the root nodules of legumes (such as soybeans) create fixed nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient.

Other soil microorganisms, including fungi (d), actinomycetes (e) and bacteria (f), decompose organic matter, thereby releasing more nutrients. Microorganisms also produce substances that help soil particles adhere to one another. To remain healthy, soil must be fed organic materials such as various manures and crop residues. 13

This is nothing but a broader term to denote environment-friendly solutions to agricultural production. Therefore, the technology-related issue of sustainable agriculture is that it should use such technology that allows usage of renewable sources of energy and is not deterrent to the overall environment.

The politics around sustainable agriculture lies in the usage of the renewable sources of energy and disciplining of the current consumption rates 14 . The politics related to the sustainable agriculture is also related to the politics of sustainable consumption.

Though there is a growing concern over depleting food for the future and other resources, there is hardly any measure imposed by the governments of developed and emerging economies to sustain the consumption pattern of the population 15 .

The advocates of green politics believe that a radical change of the conventional agricultural process is required for bringing forth sustainable agriculture 16 . Green politics lobbies for an integrated farming system that can be the only way to usher in sustainable agricultural program 17 .

Sustainable agriculture is the way to maintain a parity between the increasing pressure of food demand and food production in the future. As population growth, change in income demographics, and food preference changes, there are changes in the demand of food of the future population.

Further, changes in climate and increasing concern regarding the depletion of non-renewable sources of energy has forced policymakers and scientists to device another way to sustain the available resources as well as continue meeting the increased demand of food.

Sustainable agriculture is the method through which these problems can be overlooked, bringing forth a new integrated form of agriculture that looks at food production in a holistic way.

Batie, S. S., ‘Sustainable Development: Challenges to Profession of Agricultural Economics’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, vol. 71, no. 5, 1989: 1083-1101.

Dobson, A., The Politics of Nature: Explorations in Green Political Theory, Psychology Press, London, 1993.

Leaver, J. D., ‘Global food supply: a challenge for sustainable agriculture’, Nutrition Bulletin, vol. 36 , 2011: 416-421.

Martens, S., & G. Spaargaren, ‘The politics of sustainable consumption: the case of the Netherlands’, Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy, vol.1 no. 1, 2005: 29-42.

Morris, C., & M. Winter, ‘Integrated farming systems: the third way for European agriculture?’, Land Use Policy, vol. 16, no. 4, 1999: 193–205.

Reganold, J. P., R. I. Papendick, & J. F. Parr, ‘Sustainable Agriculture’, Scientific American , 1990: 112-120.

Townsend, C., ‘ Technology for Sustainable Agriculture. ‘ Florida Gulf Coast University, 1998. Web.

United Nations, ‘ Green technology for sustainable agriculture development ‘, United Nations Asian And Pacific Centre For Agricultural Engineering And Machinery, 2010. Web.

—, ‘ Sustainable agriculture key to green growth, poverty reduction – UN officials ‘, United Nations, 2011. Web.

1 United Nations, Sustainable agriculture key to green growth, poverty reduction – UN officials, UN News Centre, 2011.

2 J. D. Leaver, ‘Global food supply: a challenge for sustainable agriculture’, Nutrition Bulletin , vol. 36, 2011, pp. 416-421.

3 Leaver, p. 417.

5 Leaver, p. 418.

7 Leaver, p. 419.

8 J. N. Pretty, ‘Participatory learning for sustainable agriculture’, World Development , vol. 23, no. 8, 1995, pp. 1247-1263.

9 Chet Townsend, ‘Technology for Sustainable Agriculture’, Florida Gulf Coast University , 1998.

10 United Nations, ‘Green technology for sustainable agriculture development’, United Nations Asian And Pacific Centre For Agricultural Engineering And Machinery , 2010.

11 United Nations, p. 17.

12 J. P. Reganold, R. I. Papendick, & J. F. Parr, ‘Sustainable Agriculture’, Scientific American , 1990, pp. 112-120.

13 Regnold et al., p. 112.

14 S. S. Batie, ‘Sustainable Development: Challenges to Profession of Agricultural Economics’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, vol. 71, no. 5, 1989, pp. 1083-1101.

15 S. Martens & G. Spaargaren, ‘The politics of sustainable consumption: the case of the Netherlands’, Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy , vol.1 no. 1, 2005, pp. 29-42.

16 A. Dobson, The Politics of Nature: Explorations in Green Political Theory , Psychology Press, London, 1993, p. 82.

17 C .Morris & M. Winter, ‘Integrated farming systems: the third way for European agriculture?’, Land Use Policy , vol. 16, no. 4, 1999, pp. 193–205.

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Strategies and models for agricultural sustainability in developing Asian countries

The green revolution of the 1960s and 1970s which resulted in dramatic yield increases in the developing Asian countries is now showing signs of fatigue in productivity gains. Intensive agriculture practiced without adherence to the scientific principles and ecological aspects has led to loss of soil health, and depletion of freshwater resources and agrobiodiversity. With progressive diversion of arable land for non-agricultural purposes, the challenge of feeding the growing population without , at the same time, annexing more forestland and depleting the rest of life is indeed daunting. Further, even with food availability through production/procurement, millions of marginal farming, fishing and landless rural families have very low or no access to food due to lack of income-generating livelihoods. Approximately 200 million rural women, children and men in India alone fall in this category. Under these circumstances, the evergreen revolution (pro-nature, pro-poor, pro-women and pro-employment/livelihood oriented ecoagriculture) under varied terms are proposed for achieving productivity in perpetuity. In the proposed ‘biovillage paradigm’, eco-friendly agriculture is promoted along with on- and non-farm eco-enterprises based on sustainable management of natural resources. Concurrently, the modern ICT-based village knowledge centres provide time- and locale-specific, demand-driven information needed for evergreen revolution and ecotechnologies. With a system of ‘farm and marine production by masses’, the twin goals of ecoagriculture and eco-livelihoods are addressed. The principles, strategies and models of these are briefly discussed in this paper.

1. Agricultural sustainability

(a) environment and population.

In the simplest sense, agricultural sustainability connotes the maintenance of the quantity, as well as the quality of agricultural produce over very long periods of time without signs of fatigue. Agriculture includes both crop and animal husbandry and fisheries to produce the food requirements of humankind. The farm animals also must get their share of feed and forage. Apart from good seeds, agricultural productivity depends on soil health, irrigation water quality and quantity, clean atmosphere of proper composition of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen, in addition to diverse micro-organisms, pollination insects, birds, earthworms, farm animals and other non-domesticated flora and fauna ( Swaminathan 1983 ). Discussing the scenario of global agriculture, Swaminathan ( 1996 a , b ) has comprehensively addressed the scientific, technological, ecological, economic, social, gender and ethical dimensions of sustainable agriculture and food security. The domesticated crops and animals depend on ecosystem services for their productivity. So long as the ecosystems, particularly the ecological foundations such as soil, fresh water, biodiversity, renewable energy and atmosphere remain intact, agricultural sustainability (i.e. the quantity and quality or agricultural productivity over long periods of time) is not likely to be adversely affected. The ecological footprint would remain within the population supporting capacity of the planet Earth. However, anthropogenic pressures on the environment are rising to the point of causing ‘ecological overshoot’ (Wackernagel et al. 1999 , 2002 ) in many regions of the world. The human population, particularly in developing Asian and African countries, is growing at an exponential rate. There is also the coexistence of unsustainable life styles and unacceptable poverty. Consequently, humankind has been facing serious ecological and social problems: growing damage to basic life support systems of land, water, forests, biodiversity, oceans and the atmosphere. Further, global warming with consequent changes in temperature, precipitation and sea level as well as changes in the ozone layer leading to a higher concentration of ultraviolet radiation impinging on living organisms substantially enhances abiotic stress on all living beings including the beneficial microbes, crop plants and farm animals ( Swaminathan 1990 ). The climate change-related natural disasters (e.g. heavy downpours causing floods alternating with long spells of drought, etc) have become frequent, and their destructive potential also seems to have increased ( Emanuel 2005 ). These have obvious implications for sustainability of agriculture.

The social problems have arisen largely from the rich–poor divide, leading to the coexistence of unsustainable lifestyle on the part of approximately one billion people in the developed world, and unacceptable poverty of another billion, largely in the developing countries. Also, economic growth is taking place at the expense of employment, leading to jobless economic growth. A vicious downward spiral between accentuating poverty and environmental degradation is engulfing most of the developing countries of our planet. Under these circumstances, the Malthusian view that population increase beyond the Earth's carrying capacity would cause environmental degradation and outrun the growth of food production gains credence. However, it is also true that modern science and technology have so far thwarted the realization of Malthusian predictions ( Trewavas 2002 ), despite the fact that the planet Earth now has over six billion people, a population approximately six times greater than in 1798, when Malthus wrote his Essay on the principle of population . The green revolution of the 1960s in India was one such example in which Mendelian genetics and plant breeding accelerated the cereal production at a rate higher than the population growth rate during 1965–2000 (Swaminathan 1993 , 1996 b , 1999 ). During the last 35 years (1965–2000), India's population has increased from approximately 450 million to just over 1000 million—an increase of 2.2-fold. The cereal production went up approximately from 75 Mt in 1965 to 207 Mt in 2005, just keeping ahead (approx. 2.8-fold increase) of the rate of population growth. However, since the mid-1980s, visible signs of degradation of the soil quality in the predominantly irrigated agricultural regions of India together with yield stagnation have started appearing. The yield plateau has not, however, been accompanied by a similar trend in the population growth; on the other hand, 17–18 million children are added annually and this raises questions on food security linked with agricultural sustainability. Two-thirds of India's agriculture is in rainfed areas and therefore agriculture is referred to as a ‘gamble with monsoon’. In more recent years, monsoon has become even more erratic on account of possible climate change-induced vagaries. Occurrence of too much rain in a short time or of no rain at all over long periods, as also its unpredictable distribution pattern, adversely affects farming activities. Consequently, agricultural operations are not under human control to the extent desired. Therefore, the cost–risk–return structure of farming shapes farmers' decisions on the cropping pattern as well as investment on inputs.

(b) Could the green revolution have been sustainable?

India's dramatic gains in cereal production from the green revolution could have indeed become reasonably sustainable, had the successive Indian governments since 1968 heeded the ‘precautionary principle’ put forward by Swaminathan (1968) and also had the political will for implementing the population control measures through appropriate incentives for small families, quota of benefits for small families and quota for female children in higher education and employment (this would have also averted the social evil of selective infanticide of female foetuses and promoted still smaller families through highly educated women!). In the larger interest of livelihood and food security, the people and the Government of India could have even legislated that the couples who got married after 1970 (the green revolution era) should avoid having more than two children. The point is that the population growth that has more than doubled since 1968 has greatly diluted the gains from green revolution in terms of per capita availability of cereal grains. However, this picture is complicated by lack of access to food by over 200 million Indians. Much has already been said about the paradox of ‘mountains of grains on the one hand, and millions of hungry people’ on the other ( Swaminathan 2004 a ). Even in this context, containing the population growth must be accorded highest priority.

The precautionary principle put forward by Swaminathan (1968) , who has been cited by the Nobel laureate Dr Norman Borlaug as the major architect of India's green revolution, is worth being reproduced here: ‘Exploitative agriculture offers great dangers if carried out with only an immediate profit or production motive. The emerging exploitative farming community in India should become aware of this. Intensive cultivation of land without conservation of soil fertility and soil structure would lead, ultimately, to the springing up of deserts. Irrigation without arrangements for drainage would result in soils getting alkaline or saline. Indiscriminate use of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides could cause adverse changes in biological balance as well as lead to an increase in the incidence of cancer and other diseases, through the toxic residues present in the grains or other edible parts. Unscientific tapping of underground water will lead to the rapid exhaustion of this wonderful capital resource left to us through ages of natural farming. The rapid replacement of numerous locally adapted varieties with one or two high-yielding strains in large contiguous areas would result in the spread of serious diseases capable of wiping out entire crops, as happened prior to the Irish potato famine of 1854 and the Bengal rice famine in 1942. Therefore, the initiation of exploitative agriculture without a proper understanding of the various consequences of every change introduced into traditional agriculture, and without first building up a proper scientific and training base to sustain it may only lead us, in the long run, into an era of agricultural disaster rather than one of agricultural prosperity’.

The precautionary principle largely remained only in the print; unfortunately, the green revolution was practised keeping in view only the short-term yield gains and commercial goals. The ecological concerns were not given any discernible attention. No concerted action was ever taken towards arresting the progressive degradation of soil health, exhaustion of fresh water resources, depletion of biodiversity, etc. Consequently, the productivity has started declining. The greed-oriented wheat–rice rotation in the green revolution areas of Punjab and Haryana has been largely responsible for the deterioration of soil quality and depletion of groundwater. Neither pulses nor Sesbania rostrata which can fix soil nitrogen were included in the rice–wheat rotation. The result is that these regions which have been granaries of India are slowly disintegrating into food insecure regions (MSSRF & WFP 2001 , 2002 , 2004 ; Bose 2004 ).

In retrospect, it could be argued that the science-based green revolution could have been sustainable, had the precautionary principles been implemented, and if the necessary steps had been taken for maintenance of the quality of soil and water; further, the prophylactic measures taken should have been such that these did not exert toxic residual effects on non-target sources and organisms. The ecosystem that supports agriculture, whether in the form of subsistence farming or intensive farming, is essentially composed of finite entities. Therefore, the consumers of the products of this system must also be finite. The developing countries, particularly India with its great spiritual and scientific attainments, should not let the gains of green revolution slip away. The green revolution could indeed have been managed as a sustainable eco-friendly agriculture. On the other hand, it was transformed into an ‘exploitative agriculture’ which in turn led to ecological degradation, social disintegration and accentuation of economic and gender divides. In hindsight, it is evident that despite the note of caution ( Swaminathan 1968 ), the bulk of the scientific, administrative, political, farming communities and the media, as also the general public, had been too delirious with the newly found agricultural gains through green revolution to worry about precautionary principles; further, they did not realize that massive chemical inputs of fertilizers and pesticides and flooding the soil in the name of irrigation without adequate drainage would erode the physical and ecological foundations of productive agriculture. The increased grain output also created a fallacy that once food shortage is eliminated, the food security for each and every Indian would be naturally ensured. It turned out that food security at the national level does not ensure the same at the individual level in households. The point is that green revolution effectively puts an end to ‘famine of food’, but not to ‘famine of livelihood’ that was becoming intense due to human numbers exceeding the population supporting capacity of the ecosystems (Swaminathan 1999 , 1996 a , 2004 a ).

(c) Ecological footprint and agricultural sustainability

An appraisal of the human ecological footprint will help in evolving models and strategies for sustainable agriculture. The ‘ecological footprint’ is a resource management tool that measures how much area of land and water a human population requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb the wastes it generates, under prevailing technology. Every action of humans impacts the planet's ecosystems and we depend on the ecological assets to survive. The depletion of these undermines the well being of people; livelihoods disappear, resource conflicts emerge, land becomes barren, etc. As the numbers of consumers (i.e. population growth) increase and/or their lifestyles become extravagant/wasteful, the ecological deficit increases and nature's capacity to meet basic human needs reduces ( Wackernagel et al. 1999 ).

The intelligence and creative capacity of humans have unfortunately led to largely deleterious impact on the planet's ecosystems. The initiation of farming ca 10 000 years ago, and the domestication of plants and animals led to the establishment of permanent settlements. Freedom from hunting and gathering provided more leisure for pursuit of intellectual activities—music, sculpture, arts and literature, science and culture, etc. At the same time, permanent settlements also led to increase in human population. It is believed ( Clarke 2006 , http://www.energybulletin.net/16237.html ) that the human population on the planet was approximately 300 million around 1000 BC and had gone up to 800 million at the time of the Industrial Revolution in 1750. During the last 250 years, the industrial revolution has not only changed the lifestyles of humans successively from one generation to another, but also accelerated the depletion of Earth's natural resources (e.g. fossil fuels, biodiversity). More importantly, the planet Earth was also increasingly loaded with synthetic products and waste by-products, some of which are resistant to nature's method of degradation; hence, these persist as pollutants. Since the beginning of the era of industrial revolution, the global human population growth has registered approximately eightfold increase with an annual addition of 70–80 million new mouths to feed. Impacts of anthropogenic pressure, agricultural activities and industrial progress have resulted in an imbalance between the human demand and nature's capacity to provide at the local, national or global level. It is regarded as ‘growth beyond an area's carrying capacity, leading to crash’. Wackernagel et al. (2002) have tracked the ecological overshoot of the human economy. Their analyses and accounts included six human activities that require biologically productive space: (i) growing of crops for food, animal feed, fibre, oil and rubber; (ii) grazing animals for meat, hide, wool and milk; (iii) harvesting timbers for wood, fibre and fuel; (iv) marine and freshwater fishing; (v) accommodating infrastructure for housing, transportation, industrial production and hydroelectric power; and (vi) burning fossil fuel. In each category and for each year of the 40-year time series, both human demand and Earth's existing capacity to provide were calculated. For these analyses, the authors have used the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data ( 1999 , 2000 ) on cropland, grazing pastures, natural forests and plantations which exist worldwide. These data were used to calculate the human demand on the production of food and other goods, together with absorption of wastes. The accounts arrived at indicate that human demand may well have exceeded the biosphere's regenerative capacity since the 1980s. The surmise was that humanity's load corresponded to 70% of the capacity of the global biosphere in 1961, and grew to 120% in 1999. In the same year, global environmental impacts of agricultural expansion and need for sustainable practices became the major focus ( Tillman 1999 ).

It must also be emphasized that the purpose of these global accounts is not merely to measure human demand on productivity, but to offer a tool for measuring the potential effect of remedial measures. For instance, these can be used to calculate the probable effect of various technological breakthroughs. Emerging ecotechnologies producing renewable energy or mimicking biological processes are promising candidates for such calculations. For example, Von Weizacker et al. (1997) have shown how, by using appropriate technology, resource consumption for ground transportation and housing can be reduced by a factor of four, while still maintaining the same level of service. The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) has developed a ‘ biovillage paradigm ’ which has twin goals: (i) sustainable resource management and (ii) developing ecotechnologies that are pro-nature, pro-poor, pro-women and pro-livelihood oriented to combat the famine of livelihoods and the resulting food insecurity ( Swaminathan 1999 ). He has discussed how on-farm eco-enterprises such as production of oyster mushrooms from paddy straw, vermicompost from used straw waste, goat rearing based on biomass from fodder plantations on wastelands, aquaculture in community ponds, dairying based on fodder from fodder banks, broiler production based on local feed resources and production of hybrid vegetable seeds would contribute to sustainable agriculture. The details are found elsewhere (Swaminathan 1996 a , b , 2001 a , 2002 , 2004 a , 2005 b ). These are briefly discussed in §5 in the context of linking sustainable agriculture with food security of the rural poor in the developing countries. In a way, these seem to fulfil the urgent need to usher in an Ecological Revolution as sequel to the Agriculture Revolution and the Industrial Revolution to save humanity and a planet Earth which are at a crossroads ( Clarke 2006 ).

2. Present global concerns on population growth and food security

The global population of approximately 6.0 billion in 2000 is projected to reach approximately 7.9 billion in 2025 (United Nations 2002, www.un.org ). Much of the increase in the population growth will also take place in the developing countries particularly in China and India in Asia, and also in most countries of Africa. Correspondingly, an as yet undetermined area of arable land would be diverted for housing, industries, schools and hospitals. The water scarcity is also spreading ( Falkenmark 1997 ). The forest area is encroached for agricultural and developmental activities, thereby depleting the biodiversity. Several already endangered species are becoming extinct.

Concomitant with population growth exceeding the carrying capacity of a given region, the compulsion to produce more food and fibre for a unit area of land and per drop of water also greatly intensifies. This is essentially intensification of agricultural production. Such an approach in the long run results in the degradation of soil health and subsequently reduction in crop productivity. Brown & Kane (1994) have brought out the imbalance between the growing demand for food grains fuelled by both population growth and rising affluence and the future growth in grain production, in the light of various constraints, most importantly water scarcity and a diminishing response of grain yields to fertilizers. In addition, with an annual population growth at approximately 70–80 million, the non-farm claims on both cropland and water are bound to be substantial. After 2 years, Brown (1996) analysed the two major threats to food security. One is the accelerated pace of doubling of the world population. The other is the progressive depletion of oceanic resources and the slowing down of the rapid growth in grain harvest. He has also pointed out that the formula of combining more and more fertilizer with ever higher yielding varieties to increase the grain harvest is no longer working well. Global warming leading to sea level rise and climate change are now known to be real new threats. Small island developing countries, and the developing countries with large coastline such as India would suffer serious set back to agriculture and fisheries. As these problems and handicaps seem insurmountable, it is natural to look for powerful technologies to come to the rescue. For nearly two decades, hopes were raised that modern biotechnology would help in ushering in the second green revolution. It is now evident, as has also been pointed out by Duvick (1994) , that it cannot produce sharp upward swings in yield potential, especially in wheat and rice. Their use particularly in genetic shielding of crop plants against biotic and abiotic stresses is, however, well proven. Brown (1996) concludes that biotechnology is not a magic wand that can be waved at food scarcity to make it go away.

The question at this point is whether agricultural yield sustainability to meet the needs of approximately 7.5 billion people by 2030 without causing depletion of existing biodiversity and exhaustion of non-renewable resources is at all feasible, and if so, what the pathways are. The best option is the evergreen revolution discussed below.

3. Transforming the green revolution into an evergreen revolution

The green revolution was essentially commodity-centred (Swaminathan 1996 a , 2004 b ). Results and products of laboratory research were taken to the farmers' fields in a ‘top–down’ manner. The cost of external inputs as well as their affordability by the resource-poor marginal farmers was not one of the concerns. Even more importantly, the long-term negative impact of intensive use of inorganic chemicals and machines on the ecological foundations of agriculture was not addressed. Slowly but steadily, the production gains during the 1960s and 1970s increasingly became the very cause of transformation of the green revolution into the ‘greed’ revolution. Neglect of groundwater management, agrobiodiversity and soil health started eroding the prospects of achieving productivity in perpetuity. It became clear that environmental impacts of agricultural expansion warrant sustainable and efficient practices ( Tillman 1999 ).

However, by no means, was the green revolution the sole cause of degradation of the natural resources of our planet. While Swaminathan (1968) drew attention to the harmful impact of exploitative agriculture on soil, water and biodiversity, the U.N. conference on the ‘Human Environment’, 4 years later in 1972, in Stockholm, addressed how human activities were rapidly exhausting the natural resources of the planet. It recognized that ecological degradations and poverty are mutually reinforcing. The accelerated pace of damage to basic life support systems of land, water, forests, biodiversity and atmosphere naturally lead to increasing poverty as well as social and gender inequity. As stated earlier, rapid growth in population resulted in reduced per capita availability of land and water. Further, explosive technological development coupled with high rates of unemployment accentuates the misery of jobless economic growth. The World Commission on Environment and Development ( WCED 1987 ) report aptly titled, ‘Our Common Future’ is a reminder that notwithstanding political and geographical frontiers, our life on this planet is ecologically entwined. Several global agreements relating to climate, biodiversity, oceans, desertification and toxic wastes provide a framework for sustainable future to humankind. The U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, in Rio de Janeiro resulted in adopting Agenda 21 for reconciling environment and development. The priority is to break the vicious spiral between environmental degradation and poverty. When the largely illiterate, unskilled, resource-poor farming, fishing families lose much of the natural resource base, they migrate to the cities to eke out a living. Myers (2002) refers to them as ‘environmental refugees’ and describes varied aspects of the social problem. When only the able-bodied young men migrate to the urban areas, the young women are compelled to take over the responsibility of management of the subsistence farming and seasonal labour. The women of farm families become the household heads who have no or only meagre income. That results in ‘feminization of poverty’. The term, the feminization of poverty originated from the US debates about single mothers and welfare, dating from the 1970s. The feminization of poverty has been linked to firstly, a perceived increase in the proportion of female-headed households (FHHs) and secondly, the rise of female participation in low-return sector activities. Today, the term has come to be used to mean three distinct things: (i) that women have a higher incidence of poverty than men, (ii) that their poverty is more severe than that of men, and (iii) that there is a trend to greater poverty among women, particularly associated with rising rates of FHHs. Marcoux (1997) has discussed these basic aspects of the feminization of poverty having implications for sustainable development.

Further, the mass exodus of farming families to the urban areas leads to mushrooming of urban slums and civic problems. Ecological degradation leading to economic problems and then to social disintegration is widely witnessed. These are depicted in figure 1 .

Ecological degradation leading to famine of livelihoods, social disintegration and food insecurity.

The management of the deleterious consequences of the human-induced changes in climate will be a major challenge in the twenty-first century. The global warming due to increasing concentrations of green house gases (GHG) has begun to cause sea level rise and an increase in hydro-meteorological natural disasters (UNEP/GRID Arendal 2005; http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/scenarios_of_sea_level_rise ). The frequent occurrences of severe downpours leading to floods, cyclones alternated with long periods of drought particularly exert a devastating effect on agriculture. In many developing countries, agriculture has always been a ‘gamble with monsoon’, and the present climate change makes it even more so. The economic and livelihood crises created by failed crops in many parts of India have led to large numbers of suicides among the farmers caught in debt trap. The climate change-induced natural disasters could aggravate the poverty and miseries of these farmers.

Under these circumstances, the intensification of agriculture to meet the future demands for commodities needs to be made keeping in view the avoidance of further expansion on to marginal lands, forest areas or fragile ecosystems. Also the increased use of external inputs and development of specialized production and farming systems tend to increase vulnerability to environmental stresses and market fluctuations. There is, therefore, a need to intensify agriculture by diversifying the production systems for maximum efficiency in the use of local resources, while minimizing environmental and economic risks. In order to combat the ‘famine of livelihood’, on- and non-farm entrepreneurial activities for income generation should also be included. It is precisely for these reasons that the evergreen revolution is founded on the principles of environmental and social sustainability and economic viability.

With particular reference to a highly populated developing country, India, Swaminathan (1996 b ) observes that its 110 million farming families with small farms of an average of approximately 1.5 ha must produce more if they are to have marketable surplus. In fact, Swaminathan ( 1996 b , 1999 ) has put forward the concept of evergreen revolution as follows: ‘What nations with small farms and resource-poor farmers need is the enhancement of productivity in perpetuity, without associated ecological or social harm. The green revolution should become an evergreen revolution rooted in the principles of ecology, economics and social and gender equity’. While many have quoted him, Swaminathan (2004 b ) has specifically acknowledged that E.O. Wilson in his book ‘Future of life’ has even refined the concept of evergreen revolution further. Wilson (2002) wrote; ‘The problem before us is how to feed billions of new mouths over the next several decades and save the rest of life at the same time without being trapped in a Faustian bargain that threatens freedom and security. The benefits must come from an evergreen revolution. The aim of this new thrust is to lift food production well above the level attained by the green revolution of the 1960s, using technology and regulatory policy more advanced and even safer than those now in existence’.

4. Pathways to the evergreen revolution: productivity in perpetuity

(a) basic principles.

In making efforts for establishing a system of agricultural productivity in perpetuity, the two statements to be kept in view are the following: (i) ‘the global agriculture is at a crossroads from the ecological, economic and ethical stand points. The challenge lies in converting the potential now available for higher production into an opportunity to develop agricultural research and development and food distribution strategies, which can make hunger a problem of the past’ and (ii) ‘if the existence of human beings as an independent species is equated to a 24 hour day ( Lord 1962 ), then we have been farmers for only about seven minutes. Even during those seven minutes, we have practised market-oriented agriculture for only a few seconds’ (Swaminathan 1996 b , 1999 ).

The point being emphasized is that a single-track approach for enhancing productivity and market gains is now known to destroy the very foundation of sustainable agriculture. The experience gained over the past four decades with the green revolution has just exemplified the above statements. There are essential differences in the research methodology and development between the green revolution and the evergreen revolution. In the green revolution, technologies were based upon a crop-centred research as in rice research or wheat research, etc. The soil was then rather indiscriminately saturated with mineral fertilizers as were deemed essential for the crops under cultivation; unfortunately, this was widely practised with utter disregard to the needs of the soil to maintain its structural and biological integrity. Flooding the soil without adequate drainage resulted in enhanced salinity or alkalinity. Consequently, the goals of production gains in the short term eroded the prospects of the same for the future. The evergreen revolution, on the other hand, involves not just one or two crops only, but a comprehensive farming systems' approach covering land, water, biodiversity and integrated natural resources management. Soil care and water management receive particular attention. The farm animals (cows, bullocks and milk buffaloes) provide dung and urine to enrich the soil, while crop residues and fodder form the bulk of the feed for these animals. Instead of just one or two crops, judicious rotation of cereals, millets, oil seeds and leguminous pulses is proposed. Further, it is recognized that site-specific changes in the edaphic and/or climatic conditions would necessitate a wider ‘participatory’ than a top–down research and development programme. The small farm holders with severe resource constraints would constantly need urgent solutions on crop and animal husbandry, soil and water management, conservation of traditional varieties and precious germ plasm of landraces, post-harvest processing, and marketing their crop and animal produces with reasonable profit. The modern information and communication technology has emerged as the most relevant technology in support of the evergreen revolution. Swaminathan ( 2003 , 2004 a , – c ) has elaborated the technology, planning and management needs for the paradigm shift from green to evergreen revolution ( figure 2 ).

Paradigm shift: adding the dimension of environmental sustainability.

(b) Pathways and terminologies

In the initial stages of agricultural practice in India and several other developing countries, the cultivation together with crop and animal husbandry were largely eco-friendly. The farm yard manure was the major external input. Wooden ploughs drawn by bullocks tilled the soil; weeding was manually done. Yields were not as high as of the present day, but the agricultural practices were eco-friendly. It was during the middle of the nineteenth century that Justus von Liebig in Germany discovered that plants feed on nitrogen compounds and carbon dioxide derived from the air, as well as minerals in the soil. He then invented nitrogen-based fertilizer. Nearly a century later, Muller (1939; http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9054225 ) tested a compound, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and found it as an ‘ideal’ insecticide. The German chemist Othmar Zeidler had first synthesized this compound in 1874, but had failed to realize its value as an insecticide. Then, a series of chemical fertilizers providing nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium to the soil and chemical pesticides to protect crop plants against insect pests were synthesized. While the immediate benefits of these chemical agents were indeed quite impressive, their long-term harmful effects on soil and other non-target organisms came to be understood only after much damage to ecosystems had already been done. Carson (1962) has vividly described the terribly deleterious effects of DDT, dieldrin and heptachlor on wildlife populations. During the last couple of decades, there has been a growing campaign against the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture to protect crop plants. However, their use in small quantities in the integrated pest management (IPM) schedule is likely to continue for a long time, particularly in the highly populated developing countries like India and China.

In the context of the developing countries, particularly India and China, with a very large population, that is also still growing, Swaminathan ( 1996 a , b ; 1999 ; 2002 ) has recommended integrated farming systems (IFS) as the framework for creating more food and livelihood (income). He has elaborated as to how the IFS, when properly designed and practised, would ensure ecologically, economically and socially sustainable agricultural production. The seven essential constituents of the IFS are soil health care, water harvesting and management, crop and pest management, energy management, post-harvest management, choice of crop and animal components and information, skills, organization, management and marketing empowerment. There are also widely accepted broad approaches to develop each of these. For instance, soil health care that is most fundamental to sustainable intensification essentially requires the inclusion of stem-nodulating legumes like S. rostrata , incorporation of Azolla , blue green algae and legumes in the crop rotation sequence. There are, however, site-specific and resource-driven variations not only in the major inputs (e.g. effective microorganisms, vermicompost, biofertilizer, etc.) but also in their relative proportions to make up the total amount of particular nutrients required. These aspects are closely linked with integrated nutrient management (INM).

Water harvesting and management is of utmost importance especially to countries and regions with largely monsoon-dependent agriculture. Community-centred rainwater harvesting and management has been set up by the MSSRF in a few semi-arid regions of India. Community-based agrobiodiversity-conservation, rain water harvesting and management and fodder management through a system of community banks (i.e. banks with a difference; Swaminathan 2001 a , – c , 2002 ) help in linking sustainable agriculture with livelihood. Emphasis is placed on on-farm water use efficiency and on techniques such as drip irrigation, which optimize the benefits from the available water. Genetic shielding of rice and other water-thirsty crops with drought-resistant genes from Prosopis juliflora is yet another aspect of sustaining agriculture in the numerous small farms of the developing countries.

INM and IPM are the two major components of IFS (Swaminathan 2002 , 2004 a ). From the biological aspect of soil fertility management, INM seeks tight nutrient cycling with synchrony between demand of crops and nutrient release within the soil while minimizing loss of nutrients through leaching, runoff, volatilization and immobilization. It is a strategy that incorporates both organic and inorganic plant nutrients to attain higher crop productivity, prevent soil degradation and thereby help meet the future food supply needs. In the context of promoting sustainable agriculture in the developing countries, it relies on judicious application of both organic and inorganic nutrients, providing pathways to increase nutrient availability to plants, while minimizing soil degradation. The INM and IPM require close interaction between scientists with their modern scientific inputs and the traditional farmers with their ecological prudence and practical experience of soil management. Hence, both these require a ‘bottom–up’ or participatory approach . The precise composition of the INM and IPM will depend on the components of the farming system as well as on the agro-ecological and soil conditions of the area.

The integration of cultural, physical, mechanical, biological and chemical measures to manage crop pests below the economic injury level (EIL) is called IPM ( http://www.pestinfo.ca/main/session//lang/EN/ns/22/doc/32 ). The IPM is effective for controlling pests of various kinds, namely sucking pests (aphids, mealy bugs and leaf hoppers), leaf caterpillars (shoot and fruit borers) and internal feeders and stored products pests. The cultural and mechanical methods consist of cultivating insect resistant/tolerant crops, using trap crops that are highly preferred/susceptible so that the main crop is spared. Light traps and pheromone traps (pheromones are chemical substances secreted by adult insects (mostly female) for attracting the members of the opposite sex of its own species) to lure and trap help in reducing mating and egg laying. The biological methods involve the use of living agents (insects and micro-organisms) to manage the destructive species. They are categorized as parasitoids, predators and pathogens. The parasitoids are parasite-like, but almost the same size as their hosts and kills the host during development. They are often described in terms of the host stages(s) within which they develop. For example, there are egg parasitoids, larvae parasitoids, pupae parasitoids and a few species that parasitize adult insects. Parasitoids are host-specific, laying their eggs on or onto a single developmental stage of only a few closely related host species.

The MSSRF has developed an eco-enterprise, for landless women, of culturing the egg parasitoid Trichogramma chilonis which effectively controls Helicoverpa armigera , and several other stem and fruit borers ( Subashini et al. 2003 ). The integration of cultural, physical, mechanical and biological methods of pest management is quite effective in most situations; furthermore, these are all eco-friendly. The production of biopesticides (e.g. Trichogramma ) by the landless, incomeless rural women is indeed a pro-nature, pro-poor, pro-women and pro-livelihood oriented eco-enterprise. Even a small increase in income generation for these landless women enhances their access to food, and hence the food security.

Several pathways/approaches towards an evergreen revolution have been proposed and have been engaging the attention since the time of arousal of ecological consciousness in agriculture first by Swaminathan (1968) , and then the U.N. Conference on Human Environment in 1972, in Stockholm. Hence, it is significant that the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) was also started on November 5, 1972, in Versailles, France. The initiative came from the late Roland Chevriot, President of Nature et Progres (French farmers organization). The IFOAM was supposed to act as a much needed counter to what was already then perceived as the disastrous impact of ‘chemically-based’ agriculture on the environment and peasant societies. The federation also had the task to demonstrate the global relevance of organic agriculture as part of the solutions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFOAM). The IFOAM has defined organic agriculture as all agricultural systems that promote the environmentally, socially and economically sound production of food and fibres (IFOAM— http://www.ifoam.org/about_ifoam/principles/index.html ). Essentially, four principles govern the identification of organic agriculture. The first is the principle of health , which emphasizes that health of all living systems and organisms from the smallest in the soil to human beings are mutually dependent. The second is the ecological principle which stipulates that organic agriculture should be based on living ecological systems and cycles, should work with them and help sustain them. The third is the principle of fairness directing that the organic agriculture should be built upon relationships that ensure fairness, equity, respect, justice in the human–human relations and between humans and other living beings. It insists that animals are provided with conditions and opportunities of life that accord with their physiology, innate behavioural characteristics and well being. In fact, the dictum is that organic production systems should be constrained by the animal's needs and not the other way around. Improvement of quality and quantity of animal products through modern scientific tools and technologies which adversely affect the integrity of the animals is just not acceptable in organic farming. A case of unethical violation of animal welfare has been the use of modern rDNA technology to produce leaner meat in the ‘Beltsville pigs’ ( Pursel & Rexroad 1993 ). These pigs contained human growth hormone genes to accelerate growth, but suffered health problems, such as lameness, ulcers, cardiac diseases and reproductive problems ( Rollin 1997 ). For broiler chickens, which gain approximately 2 kg in 40–50 days, the muscles and gut grow faster but skeleton and cardiovascular system do not keep up, leading to leg problems and heart failure ( Kesavan & Swaminathan 2005 ). The administration of recombinant-bovine somatotropin (r-BST) to lactating cows to enhance milk production is also unethical. Jarvis (1996) has pointed out that gearing the cows with r-BST to produce more milk leads to higher demands on their physiology, and if adequate nutrition is lacking, negative effects are observed on fertility, with other health problems, especially mastitis and ketosis. Several papers presented at the 15th IFOAM Organic World Congress (21–23, 2005, Adelaide, South Australia) deal with animal husbandry and welfare. Straughan (2000) had earlier emphasized that there is no reason to believe that animals lack sentiency or the capacity to experience pain and pleasure and that they are mere automata. He has also discussed telos —the way of living exhibited by an animal whose fulfilment results in happiness or whose thwarting results in psychological depression. Free moving pigs and fowls are certainly happier than those with restricted mobility in the pigsties and pens, respectively. For these considerations, organic approach ensures a better physiological and psychological health for the farm animals. The fourth is the principle of care which stipulates that organic agriculture should be managed in a precautionary and responsible manner to protect the health and well being of present and future generations and the environment. Here, the precautionary approach for decision making recognizes that, even when the best scientific knowledge is used, there is often a lack of knowledge with regard to future consequence and to the plurality of values and preferences of those who might be affected. The emphasis is on precaution and responsibility and not on risk assessment which is considered as a narrow notion based on narrow scientific or economic appraisal. However, it does not permit use of any chemical agents (i.e. fertilizers, pesticides, etc) or transgenic crops in the schedule of organic farming. Further, the organic certification is a rigorous one and, consequently, even a very slight deviation from or compromise with the stipulations in the production of organic foods results in their outright rejection. In many countries, certification is a serious matter of legislation and commercial use of the word ‘ organic ’ outside of the certification framework is illegal.

However, the question is whether organic agriculture, that certainly is ecologically sustainable, could provide yield increases commensurate with the demands of the population growth ( Tillman et al. 2002 ). Trewavas (2002) is of the view that organic farming is no more sustainable than the fish-farming that produces high-value smoked salmon to a few rich consumers. The yields probably remain unchanged in the organically grown apples ( Reganold et al. 2001 ). There have been as yet unsubstantiated views that crop varieties genetically equipped for high yields (i.e. dwarf and semi-dwarf) through high responsiveness to mineral fertilizers would not be suitable for organic agriculture. What this means is the need for selection of traditional varieties to suit locale-specific organic agriculture. At present, there are no convincing data to argue that organic farming, as has been defined by the IFOAM, could help in accelerating the crop productivity to meet the demands of India and China. This statement is made based on the fact that productivity aspect in organic agriculture has not received noticeable attention although over 150 papers on various aspects in over 20 sessions had been presented at the First Scientific Conference of the International Society of Organic Agriculture Research (ISOFAR) on Researching Sustainable Systems held during 21–23, September 2005 in Adelaide, South Australia. The emphasis is clearly on quality of the agricultural produce and shaping sustainable systems.

McNeely & Scherr (2003) have suggested ecoagriculture as a strategy to feed the world and save wild biodiversity. Their analyses of the most recent global data on agricultural systems and wildlife habitats revealed that the scale of agriculture's impacts on ecosystems was indeed immense. It even seemed that with farming all the efforts at biodiversity conservation, in the critical protected areas, especially in the ‘biodiversity hotspots’ would be futile. Fortunately, they have discovered the potential for coexistence of agricultural systems and ecosystems based on new scientific understanding and the new resource management systems being developed in different parts of the world. They coined the term ecoagriculture to reflect such systems. For some time, a growing number of innovative agriculturists and environmentalists have been trying out different methods to tackle the agriculture–income–wild biodiversity challenge. Researchers, farmers and community planners with diverse perspectives have begun working together to develop land-use systems managed for both agricultural production and conservation of wild biodiversity and other ecosystem services. An ever-increasing realization of the fatigue of the green revolution, degradation of the soil and water and loss of biodiversity led to the integration of ecological concerns and principles into modern agricultural research and technology development. Lessons from indigenous agricultural technologies and practices were given a serious consideration from the point of promoting sustainable production. For instance, the role of soil micro-organisms, pollinator insects and nitrogen-fixing plant species suddenly received recognition and respect.

The ecoagriculture is considered even superior to organic agriculture in the sense that the former does not lay emphasis on ecosystem function and wild biodiversity conservation. The ecoagriculture increases agricultural production and simultaneously restores biodiversity and other ecosystems functions, in a landscape or ecosystem management context. McNeely & Scherr (2003) have suggested six strategies for ecoagriculture. These are briefly as follows: (i) creation of biodiversity reserves that also benefit local farming communities. An example of what has already been done in this regard by the MSSRF is in Wayanad, Kerala, India. There, the MSSRF has developed a ‘model’ farm that cultivates several spices (black pepper, ginger, turmeric and cardamon), vanilla, coffee, several medicinal plants, tuber crops ( Dioscorea species), jack fruit trees and several wild but economically useful tree species ( Syzygium travancorium and Cinnamomum malabatrum ) and also maintains a few farm animals. The farming principle includes the low external input sustainable agriculture (LEISA). Rainwater harvesting and management and soil health care are integral parts of the system. The crop pests are largely controlled (but not completely eliminated) by a traditional practice. It involves the use of crude extracts of Lobelia nicotianae foliae and ‘Panchkarya’ (a mixture of cow dung, urine, ‘ghee’ milk and curd). The ‘ghee’ is made from melting unsalted butter in a pan over a low flame. The farm manure and ‘vermicompost’ (that is the compost of digested farm waste by earthworms which also pulverize the soil) are extensively used to enhance the soil organic matter, particularly the humus. The economic viability is ensured through regular income from composite culture of medicinal, agricultural and plantation crops and farm animals. From the biodiversity point of view, the shift from the usual monoculture to polyculture ensures that a wider spectrum of species of insects, birds, small mammals and reptiles make use of the habitat. The inclusion of honeybees (apiculture) provides additional income from honey and also helps in pollination of vanilla; where adequate water is available, edible and ornamental fish culture is also included. (ii) The second strategy is the development of habitat networks with agriculture in non-farmed areas. This involves the integration of agricultural landscapes in many non-farmed areas with high-quality habitat for wild species that are compatible with farming. For example, the traditional farmers provide facilities for barn owls to contain destructive rodents. (iii) The third strategy is the reduction or even reversal of the conversion of wild lands into agriculture by increasing farm productivity. (iv) The fourth strategy is to minimize agricultural pollution through more resource-efficient methods of managing nutrients, pests and waste. This is a basic principle governing all the approaches towards sustainable agriculture, conservation of biodiversity and health and welfare of all the rural women, children and men constituting especially the farming families. (v) The fifth strategy is the modification of the management of soil, water and vegetation resources, in order to enhance the habitat quality in and around farms. An excellent example is the community-managed gene, seed, grain, water and fodder bank set up in the ‘biodiversity-rich hotspots’ in Orissa, India by the MSSRF. Swaminathan ( 2000 a , b , 2001 a ) has described the concept of promoting a community-led integrated gene management system to achieve sustainable development and food security. The Koraput region of Orissa is largely inhabitated by tribals and is also the centre of origin of cultivated rice. The tribal women are also credited with the selection and conservation of the precious genes in the form of hundreds of landraces and indigenous varieties. Their landraces have been used in scientific plant breeding for valuable ‘genes’ without, of course, any recognition or economic benefit accorded to them. These tribals who have rendered valuable service towards conservation and food security have been living in abject poverty. The MSSRF, therefore, initiated a programme of ex situ and in situ activities to strengthen the conservation traditions of the tribal communities (particularly the women) and also open up avenues for providing recognition and economic benefit to them. The conservation approach practised and advocated by the MSSRF includes in situ on-farm and ex situ gene bank conservation. The in situ -participatory conservation has an important feature of the involvement of traditional conservers, integration of conservation with a community gene–seed–grain bank continuum and establishment of an economic stake in conservation using participatory plant selection, value addition and market linkages. The in situ conservation becomes sustainable when the communities are able to link conservation with economic or cultural stakes. The knowledge system established and the genetic enrichment achieved under the in situ conservation are of profound significance to future agriculture. The ex situ community gene bank set up by the MSSRF is distinct on few accounts from the widely practised ex situ conservation. The accessions in the ex situ gene bank are deposited by farming communities, who had evolved and conserved these accessions, with trusteeship entrusted with MSSRF. This gene bank located at the MSSRF, Chennai is a medium-term storage facility maintained at 4°C and 25% RH. A duplicate sample of each accession is also stored in the long-term storage at the National Gene Bank as an additional safeguard. The accessions belonging to major food crops are notable for agronomic potential under different biotic and abiotic stresses. They are accessible, subject to Indian laws, by any party with prior informed consent of the community which has developed that accession. The MSSRF facilitates such access through mutually agreed terms and material transfer agreement. Accessions have a detailed digitalized database called Farmer's Right Information System ( FRIS ). This includes the traditional knowledge associated with each accession, their passport data, nationality and internationally accepted scientific descriptors. This database is devised to establish the intellectual property rights of farmers on their variety.

MSSRF also takes proactive actions in influencing national and global policies on conservation and rights of communities. Back in 1990, prior to the conclusion of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), MSSRF through a Keystone Dialogue held in Chennai developed a framework for recognizing and rewarding farmers and traditional communities engaged in conservation through benefit sharing and other means. These concepts were taken forward by the CBD through its Articles 8 (j), 15 and 16.

The community conservation being undertaken by the MSSRF at Jeypore in Orissa was adjudged for the first Equator Initiative award instituted by the UNDP in partnership with IDRC, IUCN, BrasilConnects, the Government of Canada and the United Nations Foundation. The Equator Initiative is a global movement committed to identifying and supporting innovative partnerships that reduce poverty through conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity . In addition, the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers ' Right Act, 2001 (PPVFR-2001) of India recognizes farmer as cultivator, conserver and breeder. Accordingly, it allows farmers the right to register farmers' variety, right to receive reward and recognition for conservation of agrobiodiversity, right to receive benefit sharing from a new commercial variety developed by using farmers' variety and right to re-sow, exchange, share or sell farm saved seeds. (vi) The sixth strategy is the modification of the farming systems to mimic natural ecosystems. Economically useful trees, shrubs and perennial grasses are integrated into farm in ways that mimic the natural vegetative structure and ecological functions to create suitable habitat niches for wildlife. In nutshell, ecoagriculture involves developing mutually reinforcing relationships between agricultural productivity and conservation of nature ( Kesavan & Swaminathan 2006 ). Thus, the ecoagriculture involves concurrent action plans towards agricultural growth, poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation . In the conventional approach, these three goals seldom complemented one another. In fact, agricultural growth and biodiversity conservation were erroneously regarded as mutually exclusive.

Yet another system of sustainable agriculture is the use of effective microorganism (EMs). Higa (1994) describes the fantastic benefits offered by EMs in solving agricultural, environmental and medical problems. The EMs not only eliminate the undesirable need to use agricultural chemicals and artificial fertilizers, but also enhance the crop yields to much higher levels than achievable with conventional farming methods. The health benefits to the producers and consumers and also the economic benefits are particularly noteworthy. He also cites the case of record-breaking rice production even in the abnormally cool summer of 1993 in Japan. The EM comes in four varieties which are numbered EM no. 1 through EM no. 4. Each type has distinct features and properties. EM no. 2 features mainly Gram-positive actinomyces; the major content of EM no. 3 is photosynthetic bacteria, and of EM no. 4, lactic bacteria and yeasts. EM no. 1 exhibits all the properties found in EM no. 2, no. 3 and no. 4. In other words, EM no. 1 is a composite mixture of all the three. Each of the four types is more appropriate to certain uses, the appropriateness of each depending on the activities of the dominant species of microorganisms in the mix. During the abnormally cool summer of 1993 in Japan, the EM no. 3 application led to more than normal rice production. The other features of the EM system of agriculture are that rice cultivation involved direct planting without any tilling and weeding. It cut the costs of agricultural chemicals and artificial fertilizers by one fifth. Untreated cow dung forms the bulk of the fertilizer. In the initial period (the first and second year), the yields were lower, but in the fourth year, the production level had even slightly surpassed the standard yield level of modern agriculture. Besides being benign to ecosystems, the EM agriculture improves the quality of fruits and reduces the cost of external inputs by approximately one-fifth. More importantly, the EM is credited with turning barren soil into rich, fertile land again, and therefore does away with the need for slash-and-burn farming technique. In the context of Brazil, where Amazon's tropical rainforests are presently destroyed at a rate of approximately 1.8 Mha a year, the EM technology proved useful to remedy the root causes of low productivity and regenerating the soil exhausted and impoverished by the use of artificial fertilizers and agricultural chemicals.

Fukuoka (1978) has described a system of natural farming in his book entitled ‘One-straw revolution’. Its four cardinal principles are: (i) no cultivation (no ploughing or turning the soil), (ii) no chemical fertilizer or prepared compost, (iii) no weeding by tillage or herbicides (weeds play a part in building soil fertility; they need to be controlled, but not eliminated), and (iv) no dependence on chemicals or poisonous pesticides. With reference to the first point (no cultivation), the author maintains that Earth cultivates itself naturally by means of the penetration of plant roots and the activity of microorganisms, small animals and earthworms. Left to itself, the soil maintains its fertility naturally in accordance with the orderly cycle of plant and animal life. Weeds are believed to play their part in building soil fertility and in balancing the biological community. Hence, they need to be there, but under control through straw mulch; a ground cover of white clover interplanted with the crops in a healthy environment is the solution for insect pests and diseases caused by viruses, bacteria and fungi. As far as yield is concerned, Fukuoka obtained 1650 pounds of a variety of glutinous rice per quarter acre (i.e. approx. 3 tonnes per acre or 7.4 tonnes per hectare). Unfortunately, no follow-up studies are available in the literature.

In recent times, the term green agriculture is in usage, particularly by China. It is a system of cultivation with the help of IPM, integrated nutrient supply and integrated natural management systems. Green agriculture does not exclude the use of minimum essential quantities of mineral and chemical fertilizers. http://english.people.com.cn/english/200010/09/eng20001009_52142.html .

White agriculture ( Stevenson 2004 ) is a system of agriculture based on a substantial use of micro-organisms, particularly fungi. The concept of white agriculture took shape in 1986 in China. White refers to the white-coated scientists and technicians performing high-tech processes to produce food directly from microorganisms or to use them to augment and improve green agriculture. The paradigm shift from green revolution to evergreen revolution as well as the various terminologies and pathways to achieve the same are given in table 1 .

Green revolution and evergreen revolution: pathways.

From the foregoing review, it is evident that several systems of natural farming ranging from organic farming with stringent stipulations to green agriculture with some flexibility provide options. The future of agriculture in India and several other developing countries depends upon their ability to enhance the productivity of small holdings without damage to their long-term production potential. Transforming green revolution into an evergreen revolution using one or more of the several pathways described here will usher in a win–win situation for both farmers and ecosystems. Crop–livestock integration and introduction of stem-nodulating legumes or pulse crops in the rotation will facilitate the building up of soil fertility. Instead of placing the above-mentioned six approaches to sustainable agriculture in different compartments, it will be prudent to develop for each farm an evergreen revolution plan based on an appropriate mix of the different approaches which can ensure both ecological and economic sustainability.

It is also required of each country to modify the various systems of sustainable eco-friendly agriculture to suit the specific need of the region and the farming community. For instance, Swaminathan ( 2001 b , 2004 b ) had proposed the introduction of Bt -gene into organic crops and vegetables to contain the heavy damage by insect borers ( figure 3 ).

Biotechnology and organic agriculture.

The point is that the available biological methods of pest control do not seem sufficiently efficient in the tropical and subtropical agriculture. Therefore, genetic shielding of crops in organic agriculture with Bt is not a bad idea at all, since it is now known to be environmentally benign and biologically safe for human consumption. Of course, more intensive studies to verify the biosafety are welcome. Similarly, the global warming-induced sea level rise is of enormous threat to coastal agriculture due to salinization of soil and freshwater sources. For instance, India with a coastline of approximately 7600 km cannot abandon the small scale farming operated by millions of resource-poor farming families. In order to sustain the coastal agriculture with rice as the major cereal crop, Swaminathan (1990) suggested the genetic shielding of the coastal cereal crops with salinity-tolerance genes from mangrove species. The MSSRF scientists have accordingly incorporated the salinity-tolerance genes from a mangrove species, Avicennia marina into rice. The transgenic rice under field trials is able to tolerate up to 150 mM of salt-induced stress ( Mehta et al. 2005 ; Prashant & Parida 2005 ). In view of the intensity and rapid spread of water scarcity, the MSSRF is presently engaged in transferring drought-resistance genes from P. juliflora to water-thirsty cereal like rice. The point is that with enormous population growth, and substantial increase in abiotic stress, new scientific methods need to be adopted for realizing the Roman farmer Varro's statement ‘Sustainable agriculture involves increasing productivity in perpetuity’. These transgenic rice could still be organically cultivated in order to enhance soil health, biodiversity and socio-economic equities than for certification and export. In fact, Evans (2006) in his book entitled, ‘A Hand to the Plough’ cites Prof. M.S. Swaminathan who made a plea for a marriage between the scientist and the farmer in the field to ensure sustainable agricultural productivity and conservation of biodiversity: ‘An intelligent integration of molecular and Mendelian breeding techniques will help to enhance the nutritive value of staples. By integrating pre-breeding in laboratories with participatory breeding in farmers' fields, it will be possible to breed location specific varieties and maintain diversity’.

5. Sustainable agriculture for livelihood and food security in the developing countries

Analyses of the causes of food insecurity at the individual household levels in rural and urban India by MSSRF (MSSRF & WFP 2001 , 2002 , 2004 ) revealed that besides the availability of food (a function of food production or procurement through import), access (purchasing power arising mostly from livelihood security) and absorption (absorption of ingested food which is a function of clean drinking water) are very important. The paradigm of ‘mountains of grains’ in the government godowns and ‘millions of hungry’ in India is mainly due to famine of livelihood ( Swaminathan 2001 a , 2003 ). With over 200 million people, mostly in the rural areas, caught in a ‘poverty trap’ with an income of about a US dollar per day, strategies to develop on- and non-farm livelihoods became a major mission of the MSSRF. Harnessing frontier technologies and blending them with the traditional wisdom and ecological prudence of the rural farming, fishing and tribal forest dwellers by the MSSRF resulted in ecotechnologies which are pro-nature, pro-poor, pro-women and pro-employment oriented. Often demystification of the laboratory-based technologies is the initial requirement. The examples are the production of (i) mushroom on rice straw, (ii) fish pickle, (iii) Trichogramma egg parasitoid, and (iv) file boards and paper from banana waste, etc. by the rural women, especially the landless women. The next step is the formation of self-help groups (SHGs) of women, men and both together. Training in the chosen ecotechnology for eco-enterprise is imparted through ‘techniracy’ (a term coined by Swaminathan (1972) to describe a pedagogic method of learning by doing). With this sort of technological empowerment, the largely illiterate, unskilled and resource-poor rural women and men are able to get a better control of their livelihood and food security. Swaminathan ( 1999 , 2002 , 2003 , 2005 a ) has described how the ‘biovillages’ (bios=living) with their technical resource centres, called ‘bio-centres’, and microcredit facilities provided by several national banks and with forward market linkages are serving an effective and integrated pathway for sustainable agriculture, sustainable rural development, sustainable food security and sustainable conservation and use of biodiversity.

In the twenty-first century, knowledge is power and the various approaches towards evergreen revolution involve knowledge empowerment of the farming and fishing communities. This would also synergize the benefits of the ecotechnological empowerment of the rural communities. Hence, the MSSRF has taken advantage of the modern information and communication technology and provided internet connectivity. Wherever electricity was not available, solar power was used. In the remote case of absence of telephone connection, a wired–wireless hybrid technology was developed. More important than connectivity is the provision of time- and locale-specific information content such as those on crop and animal husbandry, soil health, monsoon management, diversification of crops in case of monsoon failure keeping in view the edaphic conditions and market trends, adversaries on plant protection, veterinary aspects, health care of especially women and children, market prices, transport, schooling, employment, etc. The MSSRF's success and initiatives have led to the Government of India's Mission 2007 to transform all the 600 000 plus villages of India into knowledge centres. The year 2007 marks the 60th anniversary of India's independence. The point is that sustainable agriculture involves enlisting several technologies, and participatory approaches of the farmers, fishers, agricultural scientists, planners, environmentalists, policy makers, politicians, non-governmental organizations, media people and so on. In addition, community-based (i.e. decentralized) activities towards conservation of biodiversity, water and other renewable resources are also essential.

If the green revolution was top–down, the evergreen revolution is essentially bottom–up and participatory . Finally, the trade-related agreement on agriculture needs to be corrected in the sense that the trade should not only be free but also fair. The point is that the various approaches towards the evergreen agriculture necessarily involve ‘production by masses’. The ‘masses’ here are the resource-poor farming families with small land holdings of approximately 0.5 to 2.0 ha. As against this mode of production, the very large farms, as in the USA, essentially focusing on monoculture of crops, vegetables and fruits with substantial inputs of technology, capital and subsidy, belong to the ‘mass production’ (factory farming) category. For instance, India occupies the first place in the world in milk production with annual production exceeding 90 Mt. Nearly 80 million women and 20 million men are involved in this enterprise. This is an example of ‘production by masses’; in contrast, the USA produces approximately 70 Mt of milk employing only approximately 0.20 million men; this is an example of ‘mass production’. It should also be noted that nearly 150 million cows and buffaloes are used to produce a little over 90 Mt of milk in India, whereas just 9.2 million dairy cattle in the USA produce approximately 70 Mt of milk. In the USA, the production technologies lead to a ‘jobless economic growth’, whereas in India the enterprises necessarily must lead to job-led economic growth . The agricultural commodities produced by ‘factory farming’ are often exported to the predominantly agricultural, developing countries. For example, the ‘factory - farmed’ apples and oranges from developed countries have been flooding every city including Chennai (Madras) in India and, consequently, the apples and oranges grown by thousands of small scale farmers in central and northern India are not able to complete in terms of uniformity of appearance and market price. Unable to sell the products of their small farms, these farmers get into a ‘debt trap’. Another difference between industrialized countries and India is that while in the former, hardly 3% of the population are farmers, the rest being consumers; in India, farmer–consumers constitute two-thirds of the population. Globalization is a factor with considerable influence on sustainable agriculture.

6. Conclusions

The green revolution of the 1960s and 1970s transformed the image of India from a ‘begging bowl’ to a ‘bread basket’. An assessment of its impact over the last four decades reveals that it also served as a ‘forestland saving agriculture ’ . Had not the productivity levels been substantially increased through the pathways of the green revolution, India would now need 80 million ha of more land to produce food grains at the present level (approx. 207 Mt). Notwithstanding such gains, the fact, however, remains that the green revolution, practised without adherence to scientific principles, has caused damage to the ecological foundations essential for sustainable advances in productivity; this in turn resulted in fatigue of the green revolution. Lessons drawn from the green revolution are that steps taken towards productivity enhancement should concurrently address the conservation and improvement of soil, water, biodiversity, atmosphere, renewable energy sources, etc. Keeping these in focus, the goal of the ‘evergreen revolution’ for achieving higher productivity in perpetuity was developed. What this means is a system of agriculture that involves sustainable management of natural resources and progressive enhancement of soil quality, biodiversity and productivity. Several farming systems that can help to produce more from the available land, water and labour resources without either ecological or social harm to trigger the evergreen revolution have been identified. These include organic agriculture, ecoagriculture, green agriculture, EMs-based agriculture, white agriculture and one-straw revolution.

Unlike the green revolution, the pathways of the evergreen revolution address concurrently the famine of food and the famine of livelihood. Thus, the sustainable agriculture is integrated with sustainable rural development through technological and knowledge empowerment of rural communities. Blending of frontier technologies with traditional wisdom and ecological prudence of rural women and men result in ecotechnologies with pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-women orientation. Training and capacity building enables the rural resource-poor farming, fishing and landless families to manage successfully the various on- and non-farm enterprises. Technological and knowledge empowerment of the rural communities fall within the domain of MSSRF's ‘biovillages’ and ‘village knowledge centres’, respectively.

It should thus be evident that realization of sustainable agriculture requires several facets of modern science blended with traditional wisdom, participation of farmers, scientists, planners, policy makers, etc., as well as market and trade linkages that are not only free but also fair. In addition, the developing countries particularly India and China should contain their population growth without further delay. Sustainable agriculture holds out hope for humankind and the planet Earth which are at a crossroads; it can succeed only if all the developed and developing nations stand together for common good. Sustainable agriculture and development is for ‘our common future’.

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Review article, big data analysis for sustainable agriculture on a geospatial cloud framework.

• 1 Soil Management and Sugar Beet Research Unit, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA-ARS), Fort Collins, CO, United States
• 2 Environmental Systems Research Institute, National Government Unit, Redlands, CA, United States
• 3 Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA-ARS), Beltsville, MD, United States
• 4 Center for Agricultural Resources Research, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA-ARS), Fort Collins, CO, United States

Humanity is confronted with the grand challenge of how to increase agricultural production to achieve food security during the 21st century and feed a population that is expected to grow to 10 billion people. This needs to be done while maintaining sustainable agricultural systems and simultaneously facing challenges such as a changing climate, depletion of water resources, and the potential for increased erosion and loss of productivity due to the occurrence of extreme weather events. Precision Agriculture emerged out of the advances in the 1980s because of the development of several key technologies like GPS and satellite imagery. This paper argues that with the increasing impact of climate change, the next revolution in precision agriculture and agriculture in general will be driven by Sustainable Precision Agriculture and Environment (SPAE, similar to the 7 Rs), which could leverage past technologies combined with Big Data analysis. This new, technology-focused SPAE transitions from a site-specific management focus to the notion of global sustainability. To accomplish this transition, we introduced the WebGIS framework as an organizing principle that connects local, site-specific data generators called smart farms to a regional and global view of agriculture that can support both the agricultural industry and policymakers in government. This will help integrate databases located in networks of networks into a system of systems to achieve the needed SPAE management and connect field, watershed, national, and worldwide sustainability. Automation and the use of artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), drones, robots, and Big Data serve as a basis for a global “Digital Twin,” which will contribute to the development of site-specific conservation and management practices that will increase incomes and global sustainability of agricultural systems.

Introduction

The 21st century presents formidable challenges to sustainability that humanity will have to confront. The need to increase agricultural production to ensure food security for a global population estimated to grow to 9–10 billion people in the coming decades while confronting a changing climate that threatens sustainability will put pressure on agricultural systems. The United Nations Secretary-General recently warned the global community that climatic changes are occurring at a faster rate than humanity is addressing them and that humanity will be impacted by sea level rise and more extreme weather ( United Nations, 2018 ). Recent reports released by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change support these statements ( United Nations, 2018 ). The increased occurrence of extreme weather events will increase the potential for erosion in agricultural systems ( Pruski and Nearing, 2002 ; SWCS, 2003 ). Pruski and Nearing (2002) reported that erosion rates could increase by 1.7% for every 1% increase in total rainfall due to climate change. Without conservation practices humanity will not be able to adapt to a changing climate, as conservation practices will be key tools to maintain and increase the productivity and sustainability of agricultural systems ( Delgado et al., 2011 ; Walthall et al., 2012 ; Spiegal et al., 2018 ). Big data analysis will also be one of the key tools that will contribute to development of sustainable systems.

It is thought that crop production must be increased by 60–100% by the year 2050 to meet the nutritional needs of a future human population of 9–10 billion. Crop production systems that yield more food of higher nutritional content are needed, yet at the same time, they must have a diminished impact on the environment. Agricultural intensification during the 20th century was through the substantial use of fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation, all at a significant environmental cost. These technologies were part of the Green Revolution that helped achieve food security for billions of people. However, the challenges of the 21st century are different, and soil and water conservation will be key to achieve food security, and sustainable precision agriculture and environment (SPAE) will be needed so that intensive agriculture and a changing climate will not generate additional impacts that could contribute to accelerating the pace of a changing climate. As a part of sustainable agriculture, next-generation cropping systems that couple biologically-based technologies (plant-beneficial microbes, cover crops) and precision agriculture (PA) and precision conservation (PC) need to be developed to decrease fertilizer, pesticide, and water inputs while increasing conservation effectiveness to maintain sustainable agriculture at a field level and sustainability across a watershed. Crop cultivars with enhanced nutritional content and enhanced tolerance to abiotic (drought, salinity, heat, etc.) and/or biotic (disease) stresses need to be developed using advanced breeding and biotechnology approaches. These enhanced cultivars will no doubt disrupt the status quo of agricultural business.

Central to SPAE and the rapid development of these cropping systems is the use of PA and PC in the development and use of technology with the capacity to manage and disseminate accurate data and information at all levels of the agricultural ecosystem. PA ( Pierce and Nowak, 1999 ), PC ( Berry et al., 2003 , 2005 ; Delgado and Berry, 2008 ; Sassenrath and Delgado, 2018 ) ( Figure 1 ), and sustainable agriculture “are inextricably linked” ( Berry et al., 2003 , 2005 ; Bongiovanni and Lowenberg-DeBoer, 2004 ). Sustainable agriculture and PC focus on increasing conservation effectiveness and stress environmental impact and sustainability, while PA is often about immediate cost savings at a specific location by optimizing returns on inputs. This paper focuses on sustainability at both a site-specific management scale and a global scale. For that reason, the emphasis is on information systems and their ability to support a variety of characteristics of PA, PC, and global sustainability.

Figure 1 . The site-specific approach can be expanded to a three- dimensional scale approach that assesses inflows and outflows from fields to watershed and regional scales [Permission granted by Soil Water Conservation Society for reprint from source: ( Berry et al., 2003 )].

Inherent in both the complexity and accuracy of SPAE is the need to manage data spatially, which has traditionally been the realm of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) 1 For example, PA and PC use geospatial data and sensors for crop yield and any other measurable variable to apply the correct rate of fertilizer, water, and pesticide; manage drainage and water runoff; reduce movement of agrochemicals; and use the right management practices at the field and off-site ( Delgado et al., 2018a ). Both PA and PC allow the farmer to treat the production field as the heterogeneous surface it is (fertility, water, plant pathogens, slope, surface runoff, drainage, etc., which are all highly variable throughout the field) instead of as a homogeneous surface as it was treated in the past. SPAE also manages geospatial data, but its spatial relationships can be more abstract from the soil level to the molecular level in order to model more complex biological systems. In fact, Esri refers to this concept as the “science of where,” implying that GIS is evolving beyond the traditional geospatial realm of maps, images, etc. to modeling more complex relationships ( Dolan et al., 2006 ).

With increased adoption of PA and PC by farmers will come increased development and marketing of tools for PA and PC to speed up the adoption of technology. In the developed world primarily, advanced sensors and systems that deliver decision support tools directly to the farmer will be developed, allowing real-time decisions on the delivery of appropriate rate of inputs (water, fertilizer, pesticide) ( Fulton and Darr, 2018 ) as the farmer drives the tractor through the field, implements drainage systems ( Shedekar and Brown, 2018 ) and/or tries to simultaneously conserve wildlife ( McConnell and Burger, 2018 ).

The need for PA and PC will only heighten, as, for example, nutrient losses to the environment impact groundwater and surface water resources, such as has occurred with the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico ( Goolsby et al., 2001 ; Rabalais et al., 2002a , b ) and the hypoxic zone and microcystin levels in Lake Erie ( Smith et al., 2018 ). The World Health Organization (2011) has reported that microcystin concentrations above 1.0 μg L −1 in treated drinking water is not safe and is unhealthy for human consumption and in the USA, the EPA reports that for children less than 6 years of age the safe level is 0.3 μg L−1 ( United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2015 ). Water issues will continue to increase in many parts of the world in the near term, especially if there are legacy effects. New cropping systems with improved management practices must be developed that contribute to environmental sustainability to minimize negative impacts on air, soil and water. In addition, advanced crop cultivars must be developed that better use soil nutrient and water resources, are more resistant to environmental stress (temperature extremes, drought, flood, plant pathogens), and are packed with nutrients that are found deficient in populations in the developing world ( Bouis and Saltzman, 2017 ). This all must be done very rapidly as 30 years is not a long time when dealing with science and adoption of scientific technology. In other words, SPAE, which aims to preserve ecosystem services, must work with modern technologies and practices quickly through the rapid transfer of knowledge from the agricultural lab to the producer.

Over the past several decades, Information Technology (IT) has been the disruptive force in industries by driving out market inefficiencies through automation and better decision support tools that require the inclusion of both the citizens and consumers in the process. Like all industries, agriculture has not been immune to the constant disruptions over the past century (e.g., introduction of the tractor, PA, PC, and new governance models for dealing with inelasticity of demand, etc.). However, recent advances in computing infrastructure, sensor technology, big data, and advanced algorithms (e.g., Deep Learning) suggest that a major disruption or paradigm shift is on the horizon, leading to opportunities for SPAE entering the mainstream in a smart, advanced system for SPAE. IT also holds the key for accelerating knowledge transfer from the lab to the producer.

Eventually, a system based on these new technologies will be needed for mass transfer of genomic and other genetic data for the development of these advanced crop cultivars, for the management of agronomic data, and for the development of these next-generation production systems. Data generated from these cropping systems are inherently geospatial in that crop types and their environmental hardiness obviously vary regionally by latitude. Agricultural field crop production inputs and conservation management to achieve sustainable systems can vary considerably over space and time ( Pierce and Nowak, 1999 ; Berry et al., 2003 , 2005 ; Delgado and Berry, 2008 ; Gebbers and Adamchuk, 2010 ). Therefore, monitoring crop and environmental performance will highly depend not only on traditional methods of Earth Observation (EO), but also data generated in situ (i.e., ground truth).

Hence, geospatial solutions based on imagery from EO at all scales integrated with sensor networks will increasingly become critical for the operation of PA systems where resource inputs are applied at precise geo-specific field locations based on crop need. Solutions will eventually be needed to allow immediate feedback from digital farm communities regarding the performance of these new cropping systems; speeding their development based on immediate feedback to the labs and other interested parties. To accomplish this, we describe a “system of systems” approach to building a scientific network that integrates the scientific and farming communities, based on a common, global IT platform (i.e., the cloud).

Historical Challenges in Agricultural Technology Adoption for PA

Although PA has been around since the 1980s, the adoption of the technology has been slow. Schimmelphfenning (2016) reports that PA technology, for example, was used on about 30–50% of U.S. corn and soybean acres in 2012. Van der Wal (2019) suggests that the reason for poor adoption is due to the “growing complexity of adoption in the use of information technology” and the fact that “incomes in agriculture are generally low and young generations seek their prosperity in cities,” implying that those with technical prowess are heading to the cities for hi-tech jobs that pay better. PA also tends to be expensive ( Shama, 2017 ), which is reflected in the fact that it is mostly implemented on larger farms ( Schimmelphfenning, 2016 ) which can afford the complex and changing technology. However, low-tech precision agriculture/precision conservation approaches have been implemented by farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, contributing to improved yields, incomes and conservation ( Jenrich, 2011 ). There are numerous reasons for the low adoption rates and the next few sections offer several common explanations. However, there are opportunities for leveraging existing technological trends.

Poor Adoption of Decision Support Tools

While the agricultural sector has a long tradition of relying on best practices rooted in science, the industry hasn't always been an early adopter of decision support tools or extension services that resulted in speeding up the adoption of new precision agricultural practices ( Rose et al., 2016 ). Ribaudo et al. (2011a) reported in a national study that 65 percent of the cropland studied (109 million acres) needed best practices for nitrogen management. There are several reasons for limited adoption including culture in the producer community, skills, current information management processes, etc. Perhaps the biggest reason, until recently, has been the limitations of both the technologies and agricultural systems models used to support PA, much less PC and SPAE ( Antle et al., 2017 ). Specifically, Antle et al. (2017) states that “many advances in data, information and communication technology of the past decade have not been fully exploited… [because of the] underinvestment in agricultural research, particularly in non-proprietary public good research, and in research aiming to improve the well-being of poor, smallholder farm households in the developing world.” While user-centered design techniques in the IT industry will improve adoption, an active area of research exists to more quantitatively understand positive adoption of new practices ( Kuehne et al., 2017 ).

That being said, technology adoption challenges in the IT industry are well understood and noted by Moore (1991) who discusses the diffusion of innovation through groups of technologists, early adopters who see the possibilities of innovation, pragmatists who resist change until an economic benefit is defined, the late majority adopters who require low risk and high reliability, and the laggards. By utilizing targeted messaging, Silicon Valley and other tech centers' success over the past few decades in disrupting markets is often attributed to the model cited in Moore (1991) , which ironically had its roots in the study of farming practice adoption ( Beal and Bohlen, 1957 ).

Limitations of Earth Observation Data in Agriculture

From a practical point of view, these historical technical limitations in the past have ranged from lack of standards, non-scalable systems, cost of sensors, and limited support from governments around the use of EO in agriculture or remotely sensed data that focused on climate change observations as opposed to agriculture. Although there was early adoption in agriculture in the US through programs like AgRISTARS and LACIE in the 1970s/80s ( Pinter et al., 2003 ), the Landsat series, for example, primarily focused on moderate spatial resolution (i.e., 30 × 30 m), which while good for crop monitoring at the macro level, was too course for PA. Luccio (2014) suggests that “…farm management decisions, such as weed detection and management, require imagery with a spatial resolution in the order of centimeters and, for emergent situations (such as to monitor nutrient stress and disease), a temporal resolution of <24 h.”

Likewise, these moderate resolution satellites, which were primarily designed for answering scientific questions, haven't always focused on the appropriate spectral bands (e.g., red edge band) for agriculture or frequency of data acquisition to make it easy to monitor crop growth during the growing season. Yet, because of the global coverage, these satellite networks have been recognized as the original generators of big data and represented a compromise or trade-off between spatial resolution and storage capacity. In recent years, commercial satellites, such as those from DigitalGlobe, which serve a variety of markets beyond agriculture have promised to fill the gaps made from the public-sponsored platforms. However, the cost and complexity of using these data have been limiting factors at the producer level for all but the large farm operations who can justify data costs. As a result much of the use of remote sensing data has come in the past from aerial platforms and now from drones carrying small sensors focused on frequent observations over the growing season. Although at a limited coverage area, the cost of entry can be considered high for smaller farms operations in the US and, especially in the developing world creating a logistics problem of sensor and data exchange.

Poor Communication Infrastructure

In addition to the difficulty arising from a variety of remote sensing data from multiple sensors, the lack of a comprehensive backbone for high-bandwidth transmission of data to remote farm areas has limited the ability of the exchange of data between the farm and value-added services. In the US broadband adoption promises to solve this problem with bandwidth at the megabyte level, but small farm operations in low-income countries will have to rely on alternative architectures that utilize local sensor networks. Tyler and Griffin (2016) argues that “The realization of ‘Big Data's’ value will not happen until [the data transfer bandwidth] barrier is overcome.” On the surface, PA looks to not be a big generator of data for upload. Tyler and Griffin (2016) suggests otherwise for just corn alone, where for each plant generating 0.5 k bytes, the 88.9 million acres in 2015 would generate 1.3 petabytes of data, not including the notorious big data generator from aerial drones. Upload bandwidth will clearly be needed.

Siloed Data Management

Given the variety of data and limitations of bandwidth in many farming communities, it's not surprising that data management has also been an issue. First, the public remote sensing platforms, whose data generation capabilities have led to data archives at the exabyte (i.e., 1018 bytes) and above levels, have resulted in driving the public sector to invest into large data systems in order to serve a wide scientific community. These systems, while good at disseminating data, still require extensive and complex knowledge of a variety of satellites and sensors, file formats, meta data standards, physics, etc. ( Blumenfeld, 2019 ). In short, it still does require considerable expertise to gain any significant agricultural benefits from these systems.

Second, commercial satellite, aerial, and drone-based data systems, while somewhat easier to use, are still fragmented due to competing interests. In the end, the variety of data formats, velocity of data coming off of a variety of platforms, and volume of data generated have led to a fragmented and siloed data management infrastructure for agriculture. In other words, this is a Big Data problem, which is formally defined as a combination of a variety of data, the velocity of data and/or the volume of data.

Given the inherently spatial nature of agriculture and remotely sensed data, GIS offered the opportunity to minimize data siloes by providing spatial context (i.e., maps) around data. This has led to a proliferation of GIS systems that span topic areas well beyond remotely sensed data, yet has led to additional silos of geospatial information.

Immature Applications of Analytics and AI

While data silos are not inherently a problem per se , techniques including those from analytics, AI and Machine Learning, require that the data be readily accessible, coherent, and consistent before these algorithms can provide any value. Certainly, first-generation solutions like the world wide web and data warehouses have gone a long way in connecting these data siloes, but they fell short in addressing the computational capacity necessary for analytic techniques. These challenges made it difficult to apply analytic techniques comprehensively such as yield forecasting and all the other advanced techniques tried in the scientific literature.

The problem is further exacerbated when considering SPAE and modeling. In PA, applications focus on connection of inputs to needs in order to determine the action based on a spatial area. That is, while there is some modeling going on, it's relatively simple in that a precision map shows exactly where to apply the fertilizer, water, etc. SA, which places emphasis on complex interactions between biological systems, tends to have more complex models that are crafted carefully by the scientific field. Consider the Denitrification and Decomposition (DNDC) model used in the simulation of carbon and nitrogen biogeochemistry through complex interactions of soil, crop growth/decomposition, etc. to predict, among other things, nitrate leaching and C/N greenhouse gas emissions ( Salas, 2010 ; University of New Hampshire, 2012 ). Whereas initial PA efforts may not be as focused on assessing greenhouse emissions from agriculture, this more complicated model or analytic technique is an example of one that could contribute to achieving the objectives of SPAE and, as such, requires a strong source of “regional databases…for mapping and potentially monitoring management practices…for compliance, verification, or tracking sustainability” ( Salas, 2010 ).

Another recent example is the COMET-Farm system web-based tool developed by Paustian et al. (2018) to do full greenhouse gas assessments for CO 2 , CH 4 , and N 2 O from all major on-farm emission sources as well as assessments of soil carbon sequestration. This web-based tool can assess GHG emissions from perennial crops, pasture, range and agroforestry systems, as well as emissions from livestock and on-farm energy use ( Paustian et al., 2018 ). This tool can be used to assess PC practices. The user could upload a custom soil map that can specify sub-field map units, allowing the user to define spatially explicit management zones ( Paustian et al., 2018 ). An application could be added in the future to assess the effects of PA and PC on GHG emissions ( Paustian et al., 2018 ). Saleh and Osei (2018) reported that the Comprehensive Economic Environmental Optimization Tool (CEEOT) and the more user-friendly Nutrient Tracking Tool (NTT) can be used at a watershed level to assess the optimal conservation practices, using a PC approach to maximize the benefit from each dollar of conservation practice investment. They reported that by using spatial distributions of field attributes such as soil type, topography, and soil chemical and physical properties, PC can be applied to reduce the uncertainty of where to apply a given practice to increase conservation effectiveness and thus sustainability ( Saleh and Osei, 2018 ).

Regional databases are equally as critical for building accurate machine-learning algorithms. In the geospatial world, early applications of AI focused on classification of imagery such as Landsat ( Campbell et al., 1989 ), which led to applications mostly around macroeconomic crop forecasting, as is done by the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service. Figure 2 illustrates the problem through the classifications of cropland (yellow), forest (green), and roadways (gray) in the left picture, where even a casual inspection shows misclassification of the entire farm in the polygon. When taken at a national or global level, these classification error rates may well be within statistical tolerances for macroeconomic problems, but clearly fertilizing the road or farm buildings would not be acceptable in the left picture. The picture to the right on higher resolution data (NAIP) from a recent use of machine learning in the cloud shows drastically improved classification ( Tayyebi, 2019 ) due to not only higher spatial resolution data but also significant computational capacity in today's cloud environment.

Figure 2 . Coarse classification (left) vs. recent AI classification methods (right) ( Tayyebi, 2019 ).

In either case, Campbell et al. (1994) and Short et al. (1995) recognized early that regional databases needed to be developed as a mechanism for providing training data to machine-learning algorithms, which capture local knowledge from different individuals or organizations (e.g., farmers). In other words, these classification techniques rely heavily on supervised learning where training datasets consisting of known classification labels associated with spectral properties (i.e., spectral signature) are presented to the algorithms, which generalize or learn.

In the 1990s, NASA recognized the need to develop a network of distributed, end-to-end satellite processing centers, called Regional Application Centers, in order to leverage local knowledge in the building of training datasets for localized machine-learning implementations. Implemented around the world in countries with no interconnectivity at the time (i.e., the internet), NASA deployed low-cost, high-performance technology to acquire data directly from the satellites with direct broadcast capability and perform all the necessary processing routines including machine learning, in order to produce spatial information products for not only NASA but also the local and international governments ( Campbell et al., 1994 ; Davis et al., 1994 ; Short and Dickens, 1995 ). Because the mission areas ranged from hurricane forecasting to early applications of PA, the network of regional data centers demonstrated a coexistence between science goals and operation mission effectiveness that resulted in, for example, an “early warning [that] allowed the movement of over 200,000 people [in Bangladesh] to higher elevation thereby avoiding certain drowning due to flooding” ( Campbell et al., 1994 ).

The Paradigm Shift: Digital Agriculture

Research and industry could solve many of these problems given the inherent nature of PA as a simple business solution of minimizing input costs through big data management in order to maximize yield and profits in a commodity-based industry. In a recent Bloomberg article ( Noel, 2019 ) argues that companies like Bayer can acquire data from the farm, process it with analytics, and sell it back to the producers. With advances in the cloud where computational power and storage are relatively inexpensive, companies will probably move into a new era of selling information products by coalescing many of the aforementioned data sources, thereby reducing siloes and the knowledge complexity of operating the variety of data generators.

However, SPAE is different due to its focus on more environmentally friendly techniques and reliance on natural farming practices that require a level of complexity beyond simple input/outcome optimizations. Not only are the techniques less scientifically understood, but the potential improvements in yield may not generate the economic benefits required to justify the increased complexity and costs in the short run, such as the aforementioned analytic complexity for SPAE alone. With that said, recent advances in PC to increase SPAE has shown that there is potential for some quick profits when conservation practices use these new technologies. For example, Thompson and Sudduth (2018) reported that using PA tools offers an advantage in both designing and utilizing terracing and contour farming approaches to conservation management by reducing terrace layout time by 50%, contributing to savings in time and money. Thompson and Sudduth (2018) also reported that using PA will contribute to economic sustainability of these systems by using field machines that utilize GPS guidance and automatic row or section control.

New opportunities may also be possible if ecosystem markets are developed where nitrogen, carbon, or even reduction of GHG can be traded in market systems, providing additional income to farmers due to implementation of conservation practices ( Ribaudo et al., 2005 , 2011a , b ; Delgado et al., 2008 , 2010 ; Paustian et al., 2018 ; Saleh and Osei, 2018 ). Paustian et al. (2018) reported that GHG mitigation, carbon storage, and water filtration, for example, could potentially be appreciated and monetized, but it will then bring greater complexity to the decision-making and management choices of farmers and ranchers; it will also require tools and technologies that have not previously been available to agricultural producers. Delgado et al. (2008 , 2010 ) reported that a GIS nitrogen trading tool could potentially assess the spatial effects of implementation of conservation practices on reductions in nitrate leaching and direct and indirect GHG emissions that could be traded in air and water quality markets. Saleh and Osei (2018) reported that we could use spatial tools to assess the effects of conservation practices and how PC could be used to generate credits for water quality markets and to specify, for example, if the credits will be for sediment load reduction or nitrogen or phosphorus reduction. Saleh and Osei (2018) reported that by using PC there will be a reduction in the “margin of safety” credit adjustments necessary for water quality trades, improving the water quality trading options for farmers. As suggested in Campbell et al. (1994) around Distributed AI techniques for automated cooperative systems, we propose that by using AI and the new SPAE approach and technology there will be greater opportunities to make SPAE generate income in these trading systems for farmers and ranchers, and increase field, watershed, national, and global conservation.

The rest of this paper argues that big data analytics is at the core of combining precision and sustainability into an earlier notion of Sustainable Agriculture ( Berry et al., 2003 , 2005 ; Bongiovanni and Lowenberg-DeBoer, 2004 ; Delgado and Berry, 2008 ). Berry et al. (2003) reported that precision conservation will be needed to maintain the productivity of intensive agricultural systems and global sustainability. Berry et al. (2003) also reported that precision conservation has the potential to integrate conservation practices at a site-specific field level with off-site conservation practices, which would contribute to watershed sustainability. To support this argument, we will focus on both farm management and a geoinformatics cloud framework as a step toward global agricultural sustainability.

Part of the PA concept to increase the efficiency of fertilizers has been the use of a 4 Rs approach to reduce nutrient losses from farming systems (the right product, at the right rate, at the right time, and at the right place ( Roberts, 2007 ). However, Delgado (2016) reported that the 4 Rs are not enough and gave examples where significant losses of nutrients and soil could occur without precision conservation ( Figure 3 ). The concept of agricultural sustainability using a precision conservation approach in agriculture presented by Berry et al. (2003) will contribute to reduced off-site impacts across a watershed by using these new technologies to improve the design of conservation practices and increase the efficiencies of conservation practices such as field buffers, sediment traps, denitrification traps, and riparian buffers to minimize the losses of nutrients from the field and across a watershed. Cox (2005) reported that the Berry et al. (2003) PC concept could also be described using a 4 Rs approach, by applying the right conservation practice, at the right place, at the right time, and at the right scale (the 4 Rs of conservation). Delgado (2016) combined these 4 Rs of precision farming with the 4 Rs of precision conservation to create the 7 Rs for nutrient management and conservation, which are applying the right product (1), the right rate (2) and the right method of fertilizer application (3), the right conservation practice (4) placed at the right place (5) and right scale (6), with the right time of application of fertilizer and establishment of the conservation practice (7). We propose that we could use new Big Data analytics to combine precision agriculture and precision conservation ( Berry et al., 2003 , 2005 ; Bongiovanni and Lowenberg-DeBoer, 2004 ; Delgado and Berry, 2008 ) to achieve SPAE. This is similar to the 7 Rs approach described by Delgado (2016) and Sassenrath and Delgado (2018) .

Figure 3 . Locations (A,B) where the 4 Rs alone would not reduce the off-site transport of nutrients and a 7 Rs approach would contribute to reducing off-site transport of nutrients (Images from NRCS showing development of ephemeral gullies).

Modern Farm Management

With the emergence of commercial viability of PA over the past few decades, today's developed world farmer is moving from a grower and distributor of produce to a modern day data scientist who must utilize analytic techniques to both collect the right data at the right time, but also apply advanced information products to increase yield. Acting in the role of an early adopter of technology ( Moore, 1991 ), today's farmer will have to quickly learn how these new technologies can be used to help make decisions about how to increase profits by increasing yields or implementing precision management and conservation practices that could produce sustainability benefits that could potentially be traded in ecosystem service markets. The use of this new technology for SPAE will be dominated in the future by analytic techniques and AI to help provide solutions to complex problems and decisions.

Today's “early majority” farmer is increasingly aware of the role of cost externalities as they relate to input costs and will act as the bridge from the early adopter technology community. For example, whether it is organic farms that must deal with cross-species contamination from neighboring farms or the increased externalities from management practices that contribute to emissions of GHG or losses of agrochemicals that could impact water quality, or weather impacts on erosion and loss of productivity, farming must increasingly deal with long-term factors that may not show up immediately in increased yield profits but that will contribute to reduced yields if they remain unchecked. Using precision conservation to increase the sustainability of agricultural systems will contribute to adaptation to a changing climate and maintaining long-term productivity. In other words, sustainability in agriculture is increasingly becoming a necessary component of today's agricultural practices. Organizations like USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) have long known that conservation programs are methods for removing the cost burden of externalities, but with decreased public sector budgets, this is becoming more difficult as external costs increase.

Managing nutrients at a farm level is very important since losses of reactive nitrogen at this level significantly impact the environment via emissions of nitrous oxide, ammonia emissions, nitrate leaching losses, and off-site transport of surface losses of nitrogen ( Smith et al., 1997 ; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2010 ). Nitrogen losses significantly impact terrestrial resources, water bodies, and the atmosphere ( Hutchinson et al., 1982 ; Legg and Meisinger, 1982 ; Cowling et al., 2002 ; Rabalais et al., 2002a , b ; Galloway et al., 2008 ; Dubrovsky et al., 2010 ). It has been documented that these losses contribute to significant impacts such as impacts on species composition and the functioning of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, among others ( Matson et al., 1997 ; Vitousek et al., 1997 ). Reactive nitrogen could also negatively impact human health ( Follett et al., 2010 ). In addition to significant environmental impacts, these losses can also have negative economic impacts. Ribaudo et al. (2011a) reported that the cost of removing agriculture's contribution to nitrate loadings in drinking water in the USA is about $1.7 billion per year.

Fortunately, organizations like USDA's NRCS and private consultants have been increasing the use of these new technologies that contribute to implementation of conservation practices on the ground to achieve precision conservation. Precision conservation is increasingly being embraced by agencies such as NRCS and the private sector in a new revolutionary approach that is increasing conservation effectiveness ( USDA-NRCS, 2017 ). Some of the USDA ARS' voluntary conservation programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) can be used to implement precision conservation (USDA-NRCS, USDA-NRCS). There are several examples of private sector and non-profit organization implementation of precision conservation to increase sustainability ( Buman, 2016a , b ; Hammes, 2016 ; Heartland Science Technology Group, 2017 ; Chesapeake Conservancy, 2018 ; Illinois Sustainable Ag Partnership, 2018 ).

There is a revolution going on in the agricultural landscape, making it possible to move agricultural science from on-site research facilities directly to the farm. Farmers are no longer passive recipients of information but are rather actively involved in the science and development of new crop production systems that can either be yield neutral or possibly improve yield. Over the long run, this paradigm shift could reduce the need for public subsidies for external costs, as they would be an automatic byproduct of agricultural best practices.

As suggested in Wolfert et al. (2017) ( Figure 4 ), the key to the modern farm is the application of big data to the development of a smart farm and smart soil and water conservation ( Sassenrath and Delgado, 2018 ). The smart farm and smart soil and water conservation conceptual frameworks focus on the cyber-physical management cycle built around a cloud-based infrastructure that manages all farm operations. Where bandwidth is plenty (i.e., due to rural broadband), then the farmer operates as a data collector transmitting to the cloud for spatially-based analytic techniques that tell the farmer what to do and when based on looking at the macro variables across the farm landscape (e.g., weather input prediction).

Figure 4 . The smart farm conceptual framework ( Wolfert et al., 2017 ). © The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ).

For agriculture in the developed world, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) armed with hyper-spectral and other sensor types generate significant amounts of data that can be processed remotely enabling a variety of advanced analytic techniques that can drive the application of inputs automatically. Computer visions techniques are increasingly being used on applications like weed vs. crop detection ( Lin et al., 2017 ), planting, irrigation, pruning, harvesting, and plant disease detection/identification ( Ampatzidis et al., 2017 ), leading to the potential for further automation and minimizing of labor input costs.

Where bandwidth is limited, especially in the developing world, computation must be pushed to the edge where information products are produced in situ and only small data volume information products are exchanged between the cloud and farmer if at all. Referred to as edge computing, this “distributed computing paradigm….brings computer data storage closer to the location where it is needed” (Edge Wiki) 2 and is possible to the drastic drops in price/performance for hardware. In the context of agriculture, this means that machine learning algorithms that are developed in the cloud can be pushed to the edge for farm operations.

A powerful example of this model can be found in Microsoft's FarmBeats program ( Vasisht et al., 2017 ). Rather than wait for governments or private industry to invest in connectivity programs like rural broadband, FarmBeats “piggy backs” off of T.V. whitespaces 3 , which are frequencies allocated to broadcasting service but not locally used, especially in rural areas. FarmBeats deploys a field sensor array to collect variables (e.g., soil moisture) where the machine learning is used to impute or predict data points from sensor nodes and brief fly overs from UAVs. By building on inexpensive and reliable hardware, FarmBeats addresses the “late majority's” market need for simplicity and low risk, thereby facilitating technology adoption ( Moore, 1991 ). As a result, FarmBeats has already been deployed internationally in countries like India, New Zealand, and Kenya, resulting in a reported 30% reduction in water consumption ( Sims, 2019 ).

Based on trends in farm operations and management, farms are becoming the new Big Data generator that complements much of the EO data that has been gathered to date. With these advances architecturally in farm management, the modern farm can resemble the notion of “Digital Twins”, which is the confluence of IoT, AI, and big data. [Digital Twin Wiki] 4 defines a digital twin as “a digital replica of a living or non-living physical entity” that is used “to create living digital simulation models that update and change as their physical counterparts change.” In terms of agriculture and farm management, digital twins means that “farm operations would no longer require physical proximity, which allows for remote monitoring, control and coordination of farm operations” ( Verdouw and Kruize, 2015 ). From a SPAE perspective, simulation models like the aforementioned DNDC, COMET-Farm, CEEOT, and/or the NTT models are among some of the available tools that could be used to form the basis of ensuring the least impact on environment without driving up costs.

A Geoinformatics Sustainable Agriculture Framework

Regardless of the approaches, clearly today's farms are quickly becoming data generators that when stitched together spatially provide a higher resolution view into the agricultural industry, which ultimately will provide a more precise view of not only global food security but overall environmental sustainability. Governments currently have to rely heavily on EO data to estimate crop yield as it relates to food security and market predictions, which is an indirect indicator of sustainability more from an economic than environmental perspective. This has certainly been the goal of USDA's Global Agricultural & Disaster Assessment System (GADAS), which uses satellite imagery “to assist in…agricultural estimates of global crop conditions” ( Frantz, n.d. ).

GADAS represents a first-generation system that potentially forms the foundation for a broader public/private partnership of connecting farm data generators to an interconnected framework for sustainability. Or namely, it brings together a variety of spatial data via a GIS to illustrate impacts of weather, water, crop conditions, land use, etc. to give a global assessment of agriculture ( Figure 5 ). In fact, the US Federal government is starting to recognize the need for governance of geospatial data from a comprehensive point-of-view. Through the Geospatial Data Act (GDA), the intent of the act is to “coordinate and work in partnership with other Federal agencies, agencies of State, tribal, and local governments, institutions of higher education, and the private sector to efficiently and cost-effectively collect, integrate, maintain, disseminate, and preserve geospatial data, building upon existing non-Federal geospatial data to the extent possible” ( URISA, 2018 ). In other words, the GDA provides a governance framework for bringing together billions of dollars of investment in geospatial data from a variety of environmental and military mission areas.

Figure 5 . The Global Agricultural and Disaster Assessment System (GADAS) is a GIS system that provides data about global crop conditions based on satellite imagery and remotely sensed data [USDA-FAS].

Jack Dangermond from Esri established the vision for a geospatial infrastructure so that “users can easily and inexpensively access an immense wealth of geographic information on almost any subject…[leveraging] cloud computing resources to perform analysis and mapping” ( Dangermond, 2018 ). Technologically, this means providing a platform for connecting existing GIS systems together into a new architectural pattern referred to as WebGIS. The WebGIS pattern supports multiple implementation patterns from the on Farm, edge-oriented architecture presented in the previous section to a “system of systems” spread across the private and public sector.

From an agricultural perspective, WebGIS provides a framework for reducing past siloes not only across the public sector agencies, but also between the public sector and agricultural industry. USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) has taken a lead in breaking down these silos by leveraging WebGIS. Although in its early stages, the Agricultural Collaborative Research Outcome System (AgCROS) illustrates the vision of collaboration by providing a single platform for the dissemination of new agricultural scientific discoveries and techniques ( Delgado et al., 2018b ). AgCROS was built based on individual ARS national research projects. These projects studied areas such as greenhouse gas emissions, soil health, genomics, cover crops, renewable energy, antibiotic resistance, nutrient use and nutrition ( Del Grosso et al., 2013 ; Delgado et al., 2016 ; Delgado et al., 2018b ).

Sustaining the Earth's Watersheds, Agricultural Research Data System (STEWARDS) started the ARS multilocation national natural resource projects. STEWARDS used what is now called WebGIS, but each location had its own measurement vocabulary, so location cross comparison was not possible ( Steiner et al., 2009 ). STEWARDS did introduce a measurement methods catalog which is a very important component in any of these systems. The Greenhouse gas Reduction through Agricultural Carbon Enhancement network (GRACEnet) was the first project to show true collaboration among scientists ( Del Grosso et al., 2013 ). GRACEnet, also used a WebGIS. GRACEnet showed that through collaboration among the scientists, a way to build up a common vocabulary of measurements for greenhouse gas emissions. This has been key in building systems around each of these individual projects since for ARS. GIS provided a way to relate all this data based on location. The addition of metadata for public discovery and measurement methods now allow the individual location data to be combined to look at trends across ARS research locations. The next steps for AgCROS will be adding imagery, real time sensors, and electronic field collection to allow more data to be added with the goal of allowing the machine learning techniques discussed above to be realized. More importantly, it promotes the integration of agricultural knowledge using the WebGIS pattern in order to promote collaboration across government, industry and academia. In other words, it is the mechanism for speeding up the adoption of new crop production techniques to the smart farm, which can in turn deliver higher quality data back to the scientific community for enabling sound science. In effect, these aforementioned systems along with a smart farm network suggest that WebGIS could, in fact, become the Digital Twin for the Globe. In this way, such a system would facilitate the transparency of environmental costs and reduce cost externalities based on real-data from monitoring systems down to the farm/producer, thereby enabling more data-driven policy making.

Precision Agriculture emerged out of the 1980s because of the development of several key technologies as a way to improve margin through cost management of inputs while improving yield. Development of precision-conservation practices started in the early 2000s. New technologies like GPS, satellite imagery, and new methods of genetic modification in the green revolution have represented a disruption in agriculture not seen since the introduction of the first successful commercial tractor in the early 1900s and the green revolution that occurred between 1950 and the late 1960s. With the increasing impact of climate change, this paper has argued that the next revolution in precision agriculture will be driven by SPAE which could leverage past technologies combined with Big Data analysis. Among other positive impacts, SPAE will contribute to increased yields and profits, increased adaptation to a changing climate, increased sustainability of agricultural systems, and increased sustainability outside of the field and across watersheds, reducing nutrient transport across watersheds and contributing to global sustainability.

While the traditional definition of sustainable agriculture focused on incorporating new practices that deal with ecosystem services, this new, technology-focused sustainable agriculture transitions from a site-specific management focus to the notion of global sustainability. To accomplish this transition, we introduced the WebGIS framework as an organizing principle that connects local, site-specific data generators called smart farms to a regional and global view of agriculture that can support both the agriculture industry and policy makers in government.

Automation and the use of AI, IoT, drones, robots, and Big Data serve as a basis for “Digital Twins,” which could allow for simulations of new ideas that can be tested virtually to determine environmental impact before implementation in the real world. In other words, constructing new practices in the virtual world will reduce the time to deploy new practices that lead to better environmental outcomes. If we are to feed 10 billion people by 2100 while preserving our environment, the next green revolution must incorporate the virtual world.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Trade and manufacturer's names are necessary to report factually on available data; however, the USDA neither guarantees nor warrants the standard of the product, and the use of the name by USDA implies no approval of the product to the exclusion of others that may also be suitable. USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to extend a special thanks to Dr. Charlie Walthall for inspiring this work and improving our knowledge of airplanes. We would also like to thank Jack Dangermond and Nicholas Short, Sr. for long ago inspiring us to go into this field.

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Wolfert, S., Cor Verdouw, L., and Bogaardt, M. (2017). Big data in smart farming – A review. Agricult. Syst. 153, 69–80. doi: 10.1016/j.agsy.2017.01.023

World Health Organization (2011). Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality, 4th Edn . Geneva: World Health Organization Press.

Keywords: big data, analytics, remote sensing—GIS, artificial intelligence, precision agriculture, sustainable agriculture

Citation: Delgado JA, Short NM Jr, Roberts DP and Vandenberg B (2019) Big Data Analysis for Sustainable Agriculture on a Geospatial Cloud Framework. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 3:54. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2019.00054

Received: 30 April 2019; Accepted: 27 June 2019; Published: 16 July 2019.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2019 Delgado, Short, Roberts and Vandenberg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Nicholas M. Short Jr., nshort@esri.com

This article is part of the Research Topic

Sustainable Production of Nutrition-Dense Crops

Thesis Helpers

Find the best tips and advice to improve your writing. Or, have a top expert write your paper.

156 Hot Agriculture Research Topics For High Scoring Thesis

Are you preparing an agriculture research paper or dissertation on agriculture but stuck trying to pick the right topic? The title is very important because it determines how easy or otherwise the process of writing the thesis will be. However, this is never easy for many students, but you should not give up because we are here to offer some assistance. This post is a comprehensive list of the best 156 topics for agriculture projects for students. We will also outline what every part of a thesis should include. Keep reading and identify an interesting agriculture topic to use for your thesis paper. You can use the topics on agriculture as they are or change them a bit to suit your project preference.

What Is Agriculture?

Also referred to as farming, agriculture is the practice of growing crops and raising livestock. Agriculture extends to processing plants and animal products, their distribution and use. It is an essential part of local and global economies because it helps to feed people and supply raw materials for different industries.

The concept of agriculture is evolving pretty fast, with modern agronomy extending to complex technology. For example, plant breeding, agrochemicals, genetics, and relationship to emerging disasters, such as global warming, are also part of agriculture. For students studying agriculture, the diversity of the subject is a good thing, but it can also make selecting the right research paper, thesis, or dissertation topics a big challenge.

How To Write A Great Thesis: What Should You Include In Each Section?

If you are working on a thesis, it is prudent to start by understanding the main structure. In some cases, your college/ university professor or the department might provide a structure for it, but if it doesn’t, here is an outline:

• Thesis Topic This is the title of your paper, and it is important to pick something that is interesting. It should also have ample material for research.
• Introduction This takes the first chapter of a thesis paper, and you should use it to set the stage for the rest of the paper. This is the place to bring out the objective of the study, justification, and research problem. You also have to bring out your thesis statement.
• Literature Review This is the second chapter of a thesis statement and is used to demonstrate that you have comprehensively looked at what other scholars have done. You have to survey different resources, from books to journals and policy papers, on the topic under consideration.
• Methodology This chapter requires you to explain the methodology that was used for the study. It is crucial because the reader wants to know how you arrived at the results. You can opt to use qualitative, quantitative, or both methods.
• Results This chapter presents the results that you got after doing your study. Make sure to use different strategies, such as tables and graphs, to make it easy for readers to understand.
• Discussion This chapter evaluates the results gathered from the study. It helps the researcher to answer the main questions that he/she outlined in the first chapter. In some cases, the discussion can be merged with the results chapter.
• Conclusion This is the summary of the research paper. It demonstrates what the thesis contributed to the field of study. It also helps to approve or nullify the thesis adopted at the start of the paper.

Interesting Agriculture Related Topics

This list includes all the interesting topics in agriculture. You can take any topic and get it free:

• Food safety: Why is it a major policy issue for agriculture on the planet today?
• European agriculture in the period 1800-1900.
• What are the main food safety issues in modern agriculture? A case study of Asia.
• Comparing agri-related problems between Latin America and the United States.
• A closer look at the freedom in the countryside and impact on agriculture: A case study of Texas, United States.
• What are the impacts of globalisation on sustainable agriculture on the planet?
• European colonisation and impact on agriculture in Asia and Africa.
• A review of the top five agriculture technologies used in Israel to increase production.
• Water saving strategies and their impacts on agriculture.
• Homeland security: How is it related to agriculture in the United States?
• The impact of good agricultural practices on the health of a community.
• What are the main benefits of biotechnology?
• The Mayan society resilience: what was the role of agriculture?

Sustainable Agricultural Research Topics For Research

The list of topics for sustainable agriculture essays has been compiled by our editors and writers. This will impress any professor. Start writing now by choosing one of these topics:

• Cover cropping and its impact on agriculture.
• Agritourism in modern agriculture.
• review of the application of agroforestry in Europe.
• Comparing the impact of traditional agricultural practices on human health.
• Comparing equity in agriculture: A case study of Asia and Africa.
• What are the humane methods employed in pest management in Europe?
• A review of water management methods used in sustainable agriculture.
• Are the current methods used in agricultural production sufficient to feed the rapidly growing population?
• A review of crop rotation and its effects in countering pests in farming.
• Using sustainable agriculture to reduce soil erosion in agricultural fields.
• Comparing the use of organic and biological pesticides in increasing agricultural productivity.
• Transforming deserts into agricultural lands: A case study of Israel.
• The importance of maintaining healthy ecosystems in raising crop productivity.
• The role of agriculture in countering the problem of climate change.

Unique Agriculture Research Topics For Students

If students want to receive a high grade, they should choose topics with a more complicated nature.This list contains a variety of unique topics that can be used. You can choose from one of these options right now:

• Why large-scale farming is shifting to organic agriculture.
• What are the implications of groundwater pollution on agriculture?
• What are the pros and cons of raising factory farm chickens?
• Is it possible to optimise food production without using organic fertilisers?
• A review of the causes of declining agricultural productivity in African fields.
• The role of small-scale farming in promoting food sufficiency.
• The best eco-strategies for improving the productivity of land in Asia.
• Emerging concerns about agricultural production.
• The importance of insurance in countering crop failure in modern agriculture.
• Comparing agricultural policies for sustainable agriculture in China and India.
• Is agricultural technology advancing rapidly enough to feed the rapidly growing population?
• Reviewing the impact of culture on agricultural production: A case study of rice farming in Bangladesh.

Fun Agricultural Topics For Your Essay

This list has all the agricultural topics you won’t find anywhere else. It contains fun ideas for essay topics on agriculture that professors may find fascinating:

• Managing farm dams to support modern agriculture: What are the best practices?
• Native Americans’ history and agriculture.
• Agricultural methods used in Abu Dhabi.
• The history of agriculture: A closer look at the American West.
• What impacts do antibiotics have on farm animals?
• Should we promote organic food to increase food production?
• Analysing the impact of fish farming on agriculture: A case study of Japan.
• Smart farming in Germany: The impact of using drones in crop management.
• Comparing the farming regulations in California and Texas.
• Economics of pig farming for country farmers in the United States.
• Using solar energy in farming to reduce carbon footprint.
• Analysing the effectiveness of standards used to confine farm animals.

Technology And Agricultural Related Topics

As you can see, technology plays a significant role in agriculture today.You can now write about any of these technology-related topics in agriculture:

• A review of technology transformation in modern agriculture.
• Why digital technology is a game changer in agriculture.
• The impact of automation in modern agriculture.
• Data analysis and biology application in modern agriculture.
• Opportunities and challenges in food processing.
• Should artificial intelligence be made mandatory in all farms?
• Advanced food processing technologies in agriculture.
• What is the future of genetic engineering of agricultural crops?
• Is fertiliser a must-have for success in farming?
• Agricultural robots offer new hope for enhanced productivity.
• Gene editing in agriculture: Is it a benefit or harmful?
• Identify and trace the history of a specific technology and its application in agriculture today.
• What transformations were prompted by COVID-19 in the agricultural sector?
• Reviewing the best practices for pest management in agriculture.
• Analysing the impacts of different standards and policies for pest management in two countries of your choice on the globe.

Easy Agriculture Research Paper Topics

You may not want to spend too much time writing the paper. You have other things to accomplish. Look at this list of topics that are easy to write about in agriculture:

• Agricultural modernization and its impacts in third world countries.
• The role of human development in agriculture today.
• The use of foreign aid and its impacts on agriculture in Mozambique.
• The effect of hydroponics in agriculture.
• Comparing agriculture in the 20th and 21st centuries.
• Is it possible to engage in farming without water?
• Livestock owners should use farming methods that will not destroy forests.
• Subsistence farming versus commercial farming.
• Comparing the pros and cons of sustainable and organic agriculture.
• Is intensive farming the same as sustainable agriculture?
• A review of the leading agricultural practices in Latin America.
• Mechanisation of agriculture in Eastern Europe: A case study of Ukraine.
• Challenges facing livestock farming in Australia.
• Looking ahead: What is the future of livestock production for protein supply?

Emerging Agriculture Essay Topics

Emerging agriculture is an important part of modern life. Why not write an essay or research paper about one of these emerging agriculture topics?

• Does agriculture help in addressing inequality in society?
• Agricultural electric tractors: Is this a good idea?
• What ways can be employed to help Africa improve its agricultural productivity?
• Is education related to productivity in small-scale farming?
• Genome editing in agriculture: Discuss the pros and cons.
• Is group affiliation important in raising productivity in Centre Europe? A case study of Ukraine.
• The use of Agri-Nutrition programs to change gender norms.
• Mega-Farms: Are they the future of agriculture?
• Changes in agriculture in the next ten years: What should we anticipate?
• A review of the application of DNA fingerprinting in agriculture.
• Global market of agricultural products: Are non-exporters locked out of foreign markets for low productivity?
• Are production technologies related to agri-environmental programs more eco-efficient?
• Can agriculture support greenhouse mitigation?

Controversial Agricultural Project For Students

Our team of experts has searched for the most controversial topics in agriculture to write a thesis on. These topics are all original, so you’re already on your way towards getting bonus points from professors. However, the process of writing is sometimes not as easy as it seems, so dissertation writers for hire will help you to solve all the problems.

• Comparing the mechanisms of US and China agricultural markets: Which is better?
• Should we ban GMO in agriculture?
• Is vivisection a good application or a necessary evil?
• Agriculture is the backbone of modern Egypt.
• Should the use of harmful chemicals in agriculture be considered biological terror?
• How the health of our planet impacts the food supply networks.
• People should buy food that is only produced using sustainable methods.
• What are the benefits of using subsidies in agriculture? A case study of the United States.
• The agrarian protests: What were the main causes and impacts?
• What impact would a policy requiring 2/3 of a country to invest in agriculture have?
• Analysing the changes in agriculture over time: Why is feeding the world population today a challenge?

Persuasive Agriculture Project Topics

If you have difficulty writing a persuasive agricultural project and don’t know where to start, we can help. Here are some topics that will convince you to do a persuasive project on agriculture:

• What is the extent of the problem of soil degradation in the US?
• Comparing the rates of soil degradation in the United States and Africa.
• Employment in the agricultural sector: Can it be a major employer as the population grows?
• The process of genetic improvement for seeds: A case study of agriculture in Germany.
• The importance of potatoes in people’s diet today.
• Comparing sweet potato production in the US to China.
• What is the impact of corn production for ethanol production on food supply chains?
• A review of sustainable grazing methods used in the United States.
• Does urban proximity help improve efficiency in agriculture?
• Does agriculture create economic spillovers for local economies?
• Analysing the use of sprinkle drones in agriculture.
• The impact of e-commerce development on agriculture.
• Reviewing the agricultural policy in Italy.
• Climate change: What does it mean for agriculture in developed nations?

Advanced Agriculture Project Topics

A more difficult topic can help you impress your professor. It can earn you bonus points. Check out the latest list of advanced agricultural project topics:

• Analysing agricultural exposure to toxic metals: The case study of arsenic.
• Identifying the main areas for reforms in agriculture in the United States.
• Are developed countries obligated to help starving countries with food?
• World trade adjustments to emerging agricultural dynamics and climate change.
• Weather tracking and impacts on agriculture.
• Pesticides ban by EU and its impacts on agriculture in Asia and Africa.
• Traditional farming methods used to feed communities in winter: A case study of Mongolia.
• Comparing the agricultural policy of the EU to that of China.
• China grew faster after shifting from an agro to an industrial-based economy: Should more countries move away from agriculture to grow?
• What methods can be used to make agriculture more profitable in Africa?
• A comprehensive comparison of migratory and non-migratory crops.
• What are the impacts of mechanical weeding on soil structure and fertility?
• A review of the best strategies for restoring lost soil fertility in agricultural farmlands: A case study of Germany.

Engaging Agriculture Related Research Topics

When it comes to agriculture’s importance, there is so much to discuss. These engaging topics can help you get started in your research on agriculture:

• Agronomy versus horticultural crops: What are the main differences?
• Analysing the impact of climate change on the food supply networks.
• Meat processing laws in Germany.
• Plant parasites and their impacts in agri-production: A case study of India.
• Milk processing laws in Brazil.
• What is the extent of post-harvest losses on farming profits?
• Agri-supply chains and local food production: What is the relationship?
• Can insects help improve agriculture instead of harming it?
• The application of terraculture in agriculture: What are the main benefits?
• Vertical indoor farms.
• Should we be worried about the declining population of bees?
• Is organic food better than standard food?
• What are the benefits of taking fresh fruits and veggies?
• The impacts of over-farming on sustainability and soil quality.

Persuasive Research Topics in Agriculture

Do you need to write a paper on agriculture? Perfect! Here are the absolute best persuasive research topics in agriculture:

• Buying coffee produced by poor farmers to support them.
• The latest advances in drip irrigation application.
• GMO corn in North America.
• Global economic crises and impact on agriculture.
• Analysis of controversies on the use of chemical fertilisers.
• What challenges are facing modern agriculture in France?
• What are the negative impacts of cattle farms?
• A closer look at the economics behind sheep farming in New Zealand.
• The changing price of energy: How important is it for the local farms in the UK?
• A review of the changing demand for quality food in Europe.
• Wages for people working in agriculture.

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• Environment
• Food and farming
• Farming and food grants and payments

Expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive offer for farmers published

Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer from July will give the sector a clear path forward and boost farm business resilience.

Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the government today (Tuesday 21 May).     

The expanded SFI offer will be open to new entrants for the first time and will initially comprise 102 actions, designed in collaboration with the agricultural sector, including over 20 new options to support more sustainable food production, – with payments for precision farming, agroforestry, a new and expanded offer for upland farmers and more actions for tenants on short-term contracts. Sticking to the plan for agriculture, the new actions will help farmers to reduce input costs and boost yields.   

In addition, further new actions will support flood preparedness, helping businesses to become more resilient to the changing climate and challenging weather conditions.      

The SFI works for all farmers, including tenant and upland farmers. With improved choice and payment rates, the current scheme is on track to be the most popular ever, with 23,000 applications received.  

More than 50 simplified actions from Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier will be merged into SFI to streamline the application process for farmers. They include a number of actions where durations have been reduced from 5 to 3 years to align with the needs of tenant farmers. In addition to the expanded offer, the government has also launched a new digital tool known as ‘Find funding for land or farms’ to signpost customers toward the funding that is available to them.

Farming Minister Mark Spencer said:     

I recognise that farmers have had to deal with difficult circumstances this year, which is why we have delivered on our commitment to provide further detail on the expanded SFI offer ahead of applications opening in July.       The new expanded SFI offer gives farmers more choice, makes things easier and pays out more, so they can get on with the important job of producing high quality food in a sustainable way.

Meanwhile, it has also been confirmed that the application window for CS Higher Tier, which provides grants to help farmers protect, restore or enhance the environment, will open in the winter, with agreements starting in January 2025. We have been improving the offer, making it simpler and reducing the burden of seeking advice and endorsement.    

We are developing even more actions and features to be added to the expanded SFI offer later this year, including an educational access action announced in January’s Agricultural Transition Plan update. These new actions will ensure farmers have greater choice and flexibility to produce food within SFI in a way that works best for them.    

The announcement comes alongside the commitment made at the Oxford Farming Conference in January to increase payment rates by an average of 10% for SFI and CS agreements and introduce premium payments for actions that achieve the greatest environmental benefits. The doubling of management payments announced by the Prime Minister at the NFU Conference will be paid for the first time this Summer. It will be split across quarterly payments in the first year, putting an additional £1,000 in the farmers’ bank accounts.  

In March, we ensured SFI applicants will only be able to put 25% of their land into six SFI actions that take land out of direct production, and we are now applying the 25% rule to actions in the expanded offer, including in-field grass strips, unharvested cereal headland, bumblebird mix and cultivated areas for arable plants. We will continue to consult with the sector and keep actions eligible for the cap under review.  

Support for farmers   

Today’s SFI announcement follows on from a major package of support for farmers and growers unveiled at the Prime Minister’s Farm to Fork Summit in Downing Street. This includes a new Blueprint for Growing the UK Fruit and Vegetable Sector, setting out how industry and government can work together to increase domestic production and drive investment into this valuable sector which is worth more than £4 billion to the UK economy.   

We also published the first UK Food Security Index to ensure the government and sector is resilient to unexpected shocks to the market and extreme weather.

The government has committed to maintaining the £2.4 billion annual farming budget which will support farmers to produce food profitably and sustainably, while protecting nature and helping to meet our net zero ambitions. Our new schemes offer something for every type of farm, and a crucial part of their development has been to listen to farmers’ feedback.   

Further information    

The SFI scheme pays farmers to adopt and maintain sustainable farming practices that:

• recognise the importance of food production;
• protect and enhance the natural environment and support farm productivity and resilience

It does this while giving participants maximum flexibility as to how they achieve action objectives and taking an ‘advise and prevent’ approach to regulation and inspection that offers farmers help and support rather than penalising them for mistakes.

From July, farmers and land managers will be able to access options currently available in Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier (CS MT), actions from the SFI offer, plus new actions announced at the Oxford Farming Conference all through one scheme – which to keep it simple will be called the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

Bringing the schemes into one place, with one name, means farmers can access the best of both offers, the flexibility of the SFI with the breadth, scale and ambition of CS MT, just with less paperwork.

Full detail on the expanded SFI offer can be found on gov.uk .

CS Higher Tier     

This summer, we will publish CS Higher Tier information setting out who is eligible, how to apply and request specialist advice for Higher Tier actions alongside details of each Higher Tier action available to apply for.

If farmers are eligible to apply for CS Higher Tier actions, they will need specialist advice before they start their application, which they will normally get through Natural England or Forestry Commission. They may need additional advice from Historic England or the Environment Agency, depending on the actions they want to do.

Later this summer, farmers will be able to start working with Natural England or Forestry Commission to prepare an application. This includes any feasibility studies or plans they may need to complete.

Eligible farmers will be able to submit your online application for CS Higher Tier in the Rural Payments service this winter, with the first agreements starting from early 2025. Applications will then stay open throughout the year, so you can choose when to apply. Agreements will normally start the month after your application is approved.

Controlled Roll Out    

Expressions of interest have now opened for those wishing to apply through the controlled roll out, ahead of the offer being fully self service in July.

The RPA will invite a mix of customers into the controlled roll out at the end of this month to fully test the service and gather representative feedback.

If you would like to be one of the first farmers to access the expanded SFI offer, you can complete a short expression of interest on the RPA website .

We will then choose a select number of individuals to test the service and submit an application before we open the new offer to the wider sector.

Applications will open to the wider sector, based on eligibility, on 22 July.

Find Funding for land or Farms Digital Tool     

• The “Find funding for land or farms” digital tool can be found here www.gov.uk/find-funding-for-land-or-farms
• The tool will be fully functional later today (Tuesday 21 May).

Farmers told us they want us to do more to safeguard domestic food production. To that end, in March, we placed limits on the amount of land farmers can enter into 6 SFI actions

• IGL1 - Take improved grassland field corners or blocks out of management
• IGL2 - Winter bird food on improved grassland -
• AHL1 - Pollen and nectar flower mix
• AHL2 - Winter bird food on arable and horticultural land
• AHL3 - Grassy field corners and blocks
• IPM2 - Flower-rich grass margins, blocks, or in-field strips.

We’re applying the 25% rule to 4 of the actions in the expanded offer, because they’re similar in nature to the 6 above. They are:

• WBD3 - in-field grass strips
• AHW9 - unharvested cereal headland
• AHW1 - bumblebird mix
• AHW11 - cultivated areas for arable plants

New SFI applicants will only be able to put up to 25% of the total agricultural area of their farm into a combination of one or more of these 10 actions.

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