Organic agriculture and sustainable livelihood: Assessment of different organic agriculture systems for its suitability to family farms of south-west India

The study was carried out in Kerala state of India to assess contribution of organic agriculture to the ecological, economic and social sustainability of family farms of different organic agro-ecosystems of the state. Results showed that traditional homestead organic system as best in crop diversity with a diversity index (H) of 2.2 but, most advantageous system in terms of crop yield was certified organic farming system. In agro-ecosystem sustainability analysis certified organic farming system found benefited more ecologically (mean rank 95.37) and economically (mean rank 76.72). Also, organic-by-default system and traditional homestead organic system were identified as severely affected with lack of technological backup because of inaccessibility to information sources. In fact, though organic agriculture performed reasonably well to keep small family farms sustainable failure of the approach in meeting the social goals may negate its ecological and economic benefits as food is the basic human right worldwide.