ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY OF VEGETABLE PRODUCTION IN KARNATAKA
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Date
2021-03-29
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University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore
Abstract
The present intensive vegetable cultivation, designed to maximize yield has resulted in an unstable, fragile and non-sustainable production. Thus, it is imperative to understand level of sustainability of present vegetable cultivation practices. Onion and tomato were selected for assessing the economic and environmental sustainability of vegetable production by employing suitable indicators. Mean composite indicator scores of economic sustainability were 0.57 and 0.62 for onion and tomato, respectively. Cultivating onion in rainfed conditions had healthier economic sustainability than irrigated condition for all its principles, except for productivity. Apart from profitability, drip cultivation was found more economically sustainable than flood irrigation for all its principals. The two crops had peripheral differences in composite environmental indicator, with average scores of 0.47 and 0.49 for onion and tomato, respectively. The environmental performance of flood and drip-irrigated cultivation of tomato farms was similar, although drip cultivation marginally outperformed flood system in relation to space organization and energy consumption. Results of correlation analysis showed the existence of slight trade-off between economic and environmental sustainability, but it was insignificant. Economic and environmental sustainability scores were modelled using beta regression. The results revealed that the size of holding, farmers’ preference for higher incomes and years of experience in growing vegetables had significant and positive impact on economic sustainability. Flood irrigation decreases the economic sustainability in comparison to rainfed farming system. Environmental sustainability had a significant and positive association with family size, education level, years of experience in cultivation of particular crop. In total, though both the composite economic and environmental sustainability scores were low, the economic pillar had better accomplishment than the environmental pillar. Hence, imparting environmental consciousness directly or controlling farming practices indirectly through taxation or subsidies is required to maintain and enhance environmental health.