The sustenance of marginal and small farm households is a pertinent question given that their number is on the rise in South-Asia. The study aims to assess their present socio-economic profile and the challenges faced in order to draw a roadmap of development for these underprivileged households. The study pertains to Indian Punjab and data from the Situation Assessment Survey of the 70th Round of NSSO are used. The concepts of economic surplus, occupational diversity, farm productivity and vertical and horizontal inequalities are used to achieve the objectives. This study reveals that marginal farm households faced food insecurity as they failed to meet consumption expenditure from the income earned. In fact, small farm households are left with an annual economic surplus of Rs 8890 per capita only, after meeting consumption needs. Income is unevenly distributed among farm households with a Gini coefficient of 0.48. The majority of the marginal and small farm households fall in lower-income quintiles and are occupationally more diversified than their larger counterparts. Horizontal inequalities are lower between the farm-size categories (0.14) than within farm-size categories (0.27). The Gini coefficient within each farm-size category is the highest among marginal farm households (0.50), followed by small farm households (0.45), highlighting their economic stress and tug-of-war survival. Further, the farm households belonging to socially lower castes falls only in the marginal farm-size category and represent the lowest income. Development must be sustainable and inclusive, hence, policies to develop marginal farmers’ centric farming systems and high value crops such as potato, cotton, sugarcane and oilseeds, providing high yielding livestock breeds, value addition through farmer-producer organizations, non-farm employment through MGNREGA, provision of institutional credit at subsidised rate of interest and quality health and education facilities in the public sector are recommended to uplift the affected households.

Agriculture sector is major sufferer of climate change both at a global level as well as at India level. Cereals account for about 92 % of India's total food grain output and climate change has a significant influence on the production of cereals. This study aimed to evaluate the long-term and short-term effects of climatic and non-climatic variables, specifically temperature, precipitation, cereal area, total cropped area, fertilizer consumption, and pesticide consumption, on cereal production in India. The study included annual time series data that covered the period from 1960 to 2018, covering a period of 58 years. Various econometric techniques were employed to examine these relationships. The validity of a long-term and short-term relationship among the relevant variables included in the study was validated by employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique and the Johansen cointegration test. The ARDL model's estimation outcomes reveals that input factors such as cereal area became a key factor in rising cereal production, as evidenced by its positive coefficient. Similarly, fertilizer consumption and precipitation had positive effects on production in the long run whereas total cropped area and minimum temperature has little influence over the results of production both in short run as well as long run. Furthermore, the long-term findings were also supported using econometric tools like Canonical Cointegrating Regression (CCR) and Fully Modified Least Squares (FMOLS). These methods confirmed that variations in cereal production in India were significantly influenced by both climatic factors and agricultural inputs and factors. The study emphasizes the urgency for policymakers to prioritize proactive measures aimed at reducing the adverse impacts of climate change on cereal production in India. This necessitates a comprehensive strategy integrating sustainable practices, technological innovations, and robust policy frameworks to ensure resilient agricultural sectors and sustainable food production.

Purpose: Climate change-related weather events significantly affect rice production. In this paper, we investigate the impact of and interrelationships between agriculture inputs, climate change factors and financial variables on rice production in India from 1970–2021.Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on the time series analysis; the unit root test has been employed to unveil the integration order. Further, the study used various econometric techniques, including vector autoregression estimates (VAR), cointegration test, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and diagnostic test for ARDL, fully modified least squares (FMOLS), canonical cointegrating regression (CCR), impulse response functions (IRF) and the variance decomposition method (VDM) to validate the long- and short-term impacts of climate change on rice production in India of the scrutinized variables.Findings: The study's findings revealed that the rice area, precipitation and maximum temperature have a significant and positive impact on rice production in the short run. In the long run, rice area (ß = 1.162), pesticide consumption (ß = 0.089) and domestic credit to private sector (ß = 0.068) have a positive and significant impact on rice production. The results show that minimum temperature and direct institutional credit for agriculture have a significant but negative impact on rice production in the short run. Minimum temperature, pesticide consumption, domestic credit to the private sector and direct institutional credit for agriculture have a negative and significant impact on rice production in the long run.Originality/value: The present study makes valuable and original contributions to the literature by examining the short- and long-term impacts of climate change on rice production in India over 1970–2021. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, The majority of the studies examined the impact of climate change on rice production with the consideration of only “mean temperature” as one of the climatic variables, while in the present study, the authors have considered both minimum as well as maximum temperature. Furthermore, the authors also considered the financial variables in the model.

The profitability, resource-use efficiency and technical efficiency of organic crops in the Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh is estimated from primary data collected from 60 organic farmers selected randomly using three-stage sampling. The cost return data showed that maize and paddy were profitable organic crops, and increasing return to scale was supported by the Cobb-Douglas production function. Mean technical efficiency was 75, 55, 47, and 31% in maize, followed by barley, wheat, and paddy, respectively.

Focusing on sustainable agriculture production, this study presents a thorough analysis of the environmental and economic aspects of maize grain cultivation across farm sizes. Primary data were collected from 210 maize farmers via multistage random sampling through direct interviews during the 2021–2022 crop year, with rigorous pretesting to ensure reliability. The study examines different environmental impact categories and economic performance, revealing the relationship between land size and financial outcomes. The global warming potential per hectare increased across farm size categories, with large farms emitting 2.600 t CO2e/ha, medium farms 2.364 t CO2e/ha, and small farms 2.3049 t CO2e/ha, primarily due to the more resource-intensive practices on larger farms. Other environmental impacts revealed that large farms had higher acidification and fresh eutrophication potentials. Economic analysis showed that large farms achieved higher gross returns, while small and medium farms recorded better net revenue and lower costs per unit of maize produced, reflecting higher economic efficiency. Carbon efficiency and the carbon sustainability index highlighted the advantage of small and medium farms in managing emissions while maintaining productivity. The study emphasizes the need for sustainable practices, such as optimized fertilizer use, efficient irrigation, and mechanization to reduce emissions and enhance profitability. These findings highlight the potential of small- and medium-scale farms to lead sustainable agricultural production, suggesting that collaborative strategies promoting sustainable inputs and technologies can support environmental and economic goals in maize farming.