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For Evaluation of Farming Systems Development and Field Application of the Farm Assessment Index (FAI) for Evaluation of Farming Systems Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Siva Muthuprakash K M (Roll No. 114350003) Under the guidance of Prof. Om P Damani Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai – 400076. April 2018 Declaration I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “Development and Field Application of the Farm Assessment Index (FAI) for Evaluation of Farming Systems” submitted by me, for the partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to CTARA, IIT Bombay is a record of the research work carried out by me under the supervision of Prof. Om Damani, IIT Bombay, Mumbai. I further declare that this written submission represents my ideas in my own words and wherever other’s ideas or words have been included, I have adequately cited and referenced the original sources. I affirm that I have adhered to all principles of academic honesty and integrity and have not misrepresented or falsified any idea/data/fact/source to the best of my knowledge. I understand that any violation of the above will cause for disciplinary action by the Institute and can also evoke penal action from the sources which have not been cited properly. Date: Siva Muthuprakash K M ii Acknowledgments My first and foremost gratitude to Prof. Om Damani for his guidance, motivation and continuous support in every aspect during my Ph.D. life. Secondly, I express my sincere thanks to all our collaborators especially the members of ASHA (Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture) for their support in conceptualizing the project, facilitating field selection, outcome discussions etc. My special thanks to Tribal Health Initiative (Sittilingi, Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu), Chetana Vikas and Dharamitra (Wardha, Maharashtra), for their invaluable support in various aspects including selection of farmer sample, organising farmer’s orientation workshop, data collection and hosting me during field visits. My sincere thanks to the members of my Research Progress Committee (RPC) including Prof. Milind Sohoni, Prof. N C Narayanan, Prof. Narendra Shah, and Prof. Bakul Rao for their comments and feedback to improve my research work. I would like to acknowledge that the genesis of this thesis research lies in an earlier project of Association for India Development (AID), USA on comparing organic and chemical practices. My profound thanks to ASHA especially Ms. Kavitha Kurunganti to bring us the research problem which is of great relevance to various stakeholders in agriculture. I extend my hearty thanks to all the members of Organic Productivity group including Prof Srijit Misra (from NCDR, Bhubaneshwar), Mr Ashok Bang, Ms Niranjana Maru and Mr. Sumit (from Chetana Vikas, Wardha), Mr. Ananthoo (from ReStore, Chennai), Ms. Shamika Mone (from OFAI, Mumbai), Mr. Manjunath and Mr. Chinnathurai (from Tribal Health Initiative, Dharmapuri, TN) for their tremendous support for the field work and my respect to Late Dr. Om Rupela for his feedback on the methodology. My abundant thanks to my world of friends starting from labmates Asha, Rahi, Gautam and Pooja, followed by department friends Sivaram, Hemant, Vamsee, Gautham, Biswanath, Vishal, Neelam and Soumya, and then friends from other departments including Puja, Sheeba, Archana, Tanu, Hamid, Majid, Riddhi, Harsha, Muni, Mani, Kutty, Thamarai, Sivalingam and Dinesh. Above all, my whole-hearted thanks to my mom Ms. Balambigai and dad Mr. Murugan for their continuous support and patience throughout my research life. I would also like to thank my family members Siva and Shanmu anna, Lakshmi and Poorani anni, and Ghuhan and Janani for their warmth through my Ph.D. life. Finally, my respects to my grandparents Late Mr. Ekambaram, Late Mr. Muthiar, Late Ms. Parvathi and Ms. Rajeswari for their inspirations which keeps me going ahead. iii Abstract Traditionally, crop yield has been the main focus of agricultural policies and technological interventions. While there have been continuous efforts to improve farming practices towards food and farm sustainability, it is necessary to develop a metric to assess farming system in a holistic manner. Also, to design and promote appropriate agricultural interventions, a set of indicators covering long-term environmental impacts on agro-ecosystem, and socio-economic sustainability of farmers is needed. In order to address this need, we develop a Stock and Flow based framework for a systemic identification of both short and long-term indicators across the socio-economic and ecological dimension. In this framework, stock variables inside the system capture the stability and resilience of the system, and the variables from biophysical flows across the system-environment boundary capture both the desirable outcomes and undesirable impacts. The framework also aids in the selection of appropriate proxy indicators for hard to measure primary indicators by tracing their forward and backward linkages rather than avoiding complex indicators altogether. This stock and flow based framework is used to identify a holistic set of indicators for comparing farming system. These indicators are classified under three widely accepted dimensions: economic, social and ecological dimension. A methodology is designed to estimate these indicators and the estimated values are normalized using the min-max method. The indicators under each dimension are aggregated using weighted average to give three dimensional indices. These dimensional indices are further aggregated to give a single holistic index called Farm Assessment Index (FAI). The methodology was applied to evaluate farming practices of a set of 30 organic and 30 chemical farmers, each in Wardha region of Maharashtra and in Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu. The major crops including cotton, soybean, wheat, bengal gram, turmeric and paddy cultivated over 522 field plots during the year 2013-16 are studied. While there have been variations in yield and income trends, FAI score of most organic farms is better than the corresponding chemical farms. Even in the cases where the gross income from chemical farms is relatively higher, the economic index is higher for organic farms due to their higher benefit-cost ratio, lower risk, as well as better resource use efficiency. Similarly, in case of the social and environmental index, organic farms have scored higher than chemical farms due to the impacts caused by excessive fertilizer and pesticide usage in chemical farms. Further, the variance of FAI among chemical farms was significantly higher than that of organic farms. Within chemical farms, less intensive crops like wheat and gram have significantly higher index score than that of input-intensive cotton cultivation. The case studies show that FAI is a valuable tool for assessing farm practices as well as crop selection, and thereby aid in designing farm policies. Further, the comparative results show that the organic farming practices need to be encouraged for improving the long-term socio-economic viability of the farmers and ecological sustainability of agriculture. iv v Contents Declaration .................................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... iii Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... iv Contents ...................................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... x List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... xii List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................ xiv Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 1.1. State of agriculture in India .............................................................................................. 1 1.2. Motivation ........................................................................................................................ 8 1.3. Sustainability assessment tools ........................................................................................ 9 1.4. Indicators and composite index ...................................................................................... 11 1.5. Aim and objectives ......................................................................................................... 12 1.6. Research design .............................................................................................................. 13 1.7. Structure of the thesis ..................................................................................................... 14 Chapter 2 Literature Review ................................................................................................. 15 2.1 Indicators and frameworks ............................................................................................. 15 2.2 Indicator selection frameworks .....................................................................................
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