Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is an indispensable commodity, mainly cultivated by high-altitude mountain households, that sustains and supports the livelihood of an overwhelming 51% of the Bhutanese population. The popularity of potato cultivation among Bhutanese farmers can be attributed to the crop’s adaptability to a wide range of agroclimatic conditions such as a rainfed crop, high productivity, an assured market, and a reliable source of income for the farming families. We hypothesize that the changing climate would make the livelihood associated with potato cultivation in Bhutan more vulnerable. We tested this hypothesis to identify the sources of vulnerability of smallholder farming households using the Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) and LVI-IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) approaches in six potato growing districts of Bhutan: Bumthang, Chukha, Gasa, Mongar, Tashigang, and Wangdue. Primary data were generated through a semi structured sample survey of 240 households on the seven major livelihood components of sociodemographic profiles, livelihood strategies, social networks, health, food, water, natural disasters, and climate variability. The results showed that the LVI (range 0.302 to 0.375) and LVI-IPCC (range −0.005 to 0.030) differed significantly (p < 0.001) across the districts. The districts of Tashigang and Mongar were less vulnerable than the other four districts by the LVI approach, whereas Bumthang was also revealed to be less vulnerable using the LVI-IPCC approach. The degree of vulnerability in a district differed according to their level of exposure and adaptive capacity to the climate change impacts of the potato farming household. The results are expected to serve as empirical evidence for designing a future course of actions to mitigate the negative impacts.

Regenerative Agriculture (RA) has emerged as an environment-centric agriculture that prioritises reducing synthetic inputs, emphasising holistic management focussed on sustainability. However, evidence linking RA practices to desired sustainable outcomes remains inconclusive, and today’s modern conventional agriculture (MCA) prioritises similar aspects. This scoping review explores RA’s origins and how its proponents perceive sustainable outcomes. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses—extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines, our review searched peer-reviewed articles from Scopus and Web of Science, along with a Google Scholar snowball search, up to July 2024. Of the 71 articles reviewed in detail, 46 explicitly discussed RA, and 25 addressed sustainability or holistic management relevant to RA. Key research gaps identified include: (1) Despite varying definitions and uncertain outcomes, growing interest in RA warrants further research into farmers’ preferences for RA over MCA. (2) There is insufficient evidence on how farmers balance the interconnected elements in the economic, social, and environmental domains for sustainable outcomes. (3) RA practices are often unclear and overlap with other production methods, necessitating clearer definitions of input systems and strategies used to comprehend RA’s biophysical and economic outcomes. A conceptual framework is proposed to guide future research and inform agricultural sustainability programmes.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the widely cultivated horticultural commodities in Bhutan. Over the years yields of potato at national level have stagnated due to degeneration of seeds and lack of appropriate varieties in the country. To address the yield stagnation issue, two potato varieties (Yusi Maap and Nasphel Kewa Kaap (NKK)) were introduced in recent years. To understand crop productivity and farmer’s preferences of the new varieties this study was conducted in Bumthang, Chukha, Gasa, Haa, and Wangduephodrang districts from 2017 to 2018 using the field demonstration trials and participatory varietal selection method. Desiree, the popular variety was used as a control. On an average across years and dzongkhags, mean yields of the NKK and Yusi Maap were 10.4 and 10.5 tons/acre, respectively. Hence, yields of Yusi Maap and NKK were approximately 30% higher in comparison to Desire, which was 7.30 tons/acre on an average across the years and dzongkhags. Being one of the oldest varieties, Desiree consistently showed lower productivity compared to other two varieties due to seed degeneration and quality deterioration. Although the productivity difference between NKK and Yusi Maap is minimal (0.10 tons/acre) the preference votes of Yusi Maap was 1.3 times that of NKK indicating the higher level of preferences for Yusi Maap. There was positive significant relationship (P=0.02) between the potato productivity and the farmer’s preference suggesting that higher productivity attracted more votes and lower productivity attracted lesser votes. Further higher productivity is also seen as a means to earn cash income for the household to achieve food security in terms of household’s consumptions through the sale of potatoes. The findings provide a sound scientific basis to guide program implementers and policy-makers in terms of potato research and development at the national level.