Assessing the impact of policy-driven agricultural practices in Karnataka, India

The classical approach of assessing sustainability with respect to its three underlying pillars, ecological, economic, and social, is adopted in this paper, with an added emphasis on estimating the simultaneous effects of each pillar on the other two. The paper assesses the impact of policy-driven c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability science 2013-04, Vol.8 (2), p.173-185
Main Authors: Purushothaman, Seema, Patil, Sheetal, Francis, Ierene
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural and forest climatology and meteorology. Irrigation. Drainage
Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Applied ecology
Biological and medical sciences
Climate Change Management and Policy
Earth and Environmental Science
economic impact
Environment
Environment and sustainable development
Environmental Economics
Environmental Management
equations
farms
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General agronomy. Plant production
General aspects. Techniques
irrigated farming
Irrigation. Drainage
issues and policy
Landscape Ecology
Methods and techniques (sampling, tagging, trapping, modelling...)
organic production
Original Article
Public Health
Sustainable Development
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Summary:The classical approach of assessing sustainability with respect to its three underlying pillars, ecological, economic, and social, is adopted in this paper, with an added emphasis on estimating the simultaneous effects of each pillar on the other two. The paper assesses the impact of policy-driven changes in cultivation practices in five districts in the south-western Indian state of Karnataka. A comparative statics analysis using a simultaneous equations model is developed to capture the stability of each pillar into the future and their concurrent interactive impacts and trade-offs. Ecological and economic impacts of policies favoring organic farming are estimated to be uniformly significant and positive in the study districts. However, the impact on socio-cultural criteria is subjective to the eco-regional context. Cost savings, through producing organic inputs on-farm, maximizes synchrony among the three pillars vis-à-vis sourcing these inputs from the market. With more reliance on organic inputs, better prospects are estimated for small and rain-fed farms compared to large and irrigated farms.
ISSN:1862-4065
1862-4057
DOI:10.1007/s11625-012-0188-y