ANNOUNCEMENTS
Farming systems in semi-arid regions are facing many challenges like water shortage, climate variability, poor soil fertility, degraded natural resource base, long dry seasons, inconsistent rainfall and much more. The growing population and their increasing food requirements, degrading natural resource base of semi- arid regions and also people’s dependency on agriculture for livelihood has led to pay major emphasis on studying sustainability of the farming systems. As a part of a larger project on Agriculture Sustainability Assessment being undertaken at ICRISAT, the study attempts to measure sustainability of farming systems in semi-arid regions in India. The Assessment Index employed here comprises of five dimensions of Sustainability i.e. Environment, Economic, Social, Human conditions and Production which are then subdivided into themes, sub themes and indicators. The study employs the combination of primary research and secondary analysis and presents application of the data collected on the farming systems of Kotha Thanda and Boring Thanda villages of Suryapet District of Telangana, India. The outcome of the study is a quantifiable sustainability Index which takes into consideration the five domains of sustainability and tries to clearly demarcate the boundaries of sustainable and unsustainable farming system, thus acting as a measurement tool for major stakeholders. Researchers and practitioners seeking to use the index can undertake validation of indicators, their scoring, and setting up of benchmarks to understand its usage in other settings.
Keywords: Sustainability, Farming systems, Semi-arid tropics, Sustainability Index
