Cotton is the second largest crop of Pakistan in terms of area after wheat and is being suffered by multiple shocks over the time due to conventional agricultural management practices, climate change, and market failures. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) was introduced by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in 2010, as an innovative cleaner production alternative to conventional farming that aimed at increasing the efficiency of natural resources, resilience, and productivity of agricultural production system, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The adverse effects of climate change on cotton production at the farm and regional level can be minimized by using CSA practices and technologies. The present study investigated the financial performance and explored the impact of CSA through sustainable water use management on cotton production in Lower Bari Doab Canal (LBDC) irrigation system of Punjab, Pakistan by using Cobb-Douglas production function. The adopters of CSA in cotton cultivation were identified by conducting six focus group discussions. Data were collected through well-structured questionnaire from 133 adopters of CSA and 65 conventional cotton growers for the cropping season 2016–2017. It was found that water-smart (raising crops on bed, laser land levelling, conjunctive use of water and drainage management), energy-smart (minimum tillage), carbon-smart (less use of chemicals) and knowledge-smart (crop rotation and improved varieties i.e., tolerant to drought, flood and heat/cold stresses) practices and technologies of CSA were adopted by the cotton farmers in the study area. Most of the farmers were of the view that they are adopting CSA practices and technologies due to the limited supply of canal water, climate change, drought-prone, massive groundwater extraction, rapidly declining groundwater table and increasing soil salinity over the time. Results revealed that uniform germination, higher yield and financial returns, the concentration of inputs and increase in resource use efficiency are the main advantages of CSA. The econometric analysis showed that implementation of CSA practices and technologies as judicious use of water and fertilizer, groundwater quality, access to extension services, and appropriate method and time of picking have a significant impact on the gross value of cotton product (GVP). The findings of the study would be helpful for policy makers to formulate policies that can minimize farmer’s financial burden to adopt CSA technologies and implement for scaling out in Punjab and beyond.

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has recently received increasing attention from researchers and the business community. Due to globalization and changing consumption patterns, agri-food industries have undergone a transformation, and the sustainability of agri-food supply chains has also received greater attention. However, the issues of SSCM at the upstream level of the supply chain in agri-food industries have not been adequately empirically studied. This paper aims to list key issues or constraints in the production and marketing through farmers’ group discussions, supplemented by the literature, and empirically identifies key constraints to SSCM of the citrus industry in Pakistan. The paper used cross-sectional data from 300 farmers involved in the production and marketing of citrus in Punjab, Pakistan. Farmers were asked to answer on a Likert scale data about potential constraints identified from the literature and farmers’ group discussions. Kendell’s coefficient of concordance and the mean ranking technique was used to rank and to identify the critical constraints in the production and marketing of citrus. In addition, factor analysis (principal component analysis) was used for the grouping of these constraints. In production constraints, factors, such as fertilizer, pesticide, and seed quality, climate change, high production cost, and agricultural labor performance, are important. These constraints are aligned with some key marketing factors, such as packaging, grading, and storage facilities. The findings convey messages for policymakers to solve these issues and challenges at the upstream level of the SSCM chain in the citrus and related agri-food industries.

Water is the most important resource; it is utilized largely in agricultural production and is fundamental to ensuring global food security. This study aims to assess sustainable water management interventions and their impact on the farm economy. To increase water productivity, the most important adaptations that have been proposed are high-efficiency irrigation systems, drought-resistant varieties, the substitution of water-intensive crops with less water-demanding crops, the mulching of soil, zero tillage, and all on-farm operations that can save water, especially ground water. The recent analysis utilized farm survey data from 469 representative farmers along with secondary statistics. The data were collected via a multi-stage sampling technique to ensure the availability of representative farm populations based on a comprehensive site selection criterion. The TOA-MD model estimates the adoption rate of a proposed adaptation based on net farm returns. The impact of high-efficiency irrigation systems and the substitution of high delta crops for low delta crops had a positive impact on net farm returns and per capita income, and a negative impact on farm poverty in the study area. It is recommended that policymakers consult farmer representatives about agricultural and water-related issues so that all the policies can be implemented properly.

The basic objective of the irrigation reforms, i.e., participatory irrigation management in Pakistan, was a better economic and financial management of irrigation service delivery, equity in water distribution, and better environmental outcome. The aim of this study was to assess the optimism with the reforms package that has actually delivered expected outcomes. For this purpose, this study used a cross-sectional dataset of 567 farmers in five selected Area Water Boards (AWBs) of Punjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan. Important institutional features including compliance, adaptiveness, clarity of objectives, good interaction, and appropriate scale, were modeled through structural equation modeling on the overall performance assessment of water use associations from a farmer’s perspective. Results suggested that clear objectives, adaptiveness, scale, and compliance show a strong relationship with an overall assessment of performance. While good interaction has not impacted significantly with an overall performance assessment. The impact of institutional feature on the overall performance assessment depends on the nature of performance considered, e.g., drivers of the economic performance of a farmer organization may not be the same as the drivers of its environmental performance. Besides offering insights on specific drivers that matter for a particular dimension of the institutional performance of farmer organizations, the study suggests that participatory irrigation management institutions are still in infancy even after decades of their introduction, and just creating institutions is neither mandatory nor sufficient. Furthermore, the institutional designs are considered critical for the success of participatory institutions. Therefore, there is a need to consider the conformity of the strategies with the existing norms and compliance to the on-going procedures.