@ Narinderpal, actually sustainability depends on rotating crops, integrating livestock and crops, embracing diversity, adopting agroforestry practices, reducing tillage, planting cover crops, apply IPM etc. It does not depend on the farm size. Definitely, small farming unit would be better to manage. To maintain biodiversity and soil fertility should be the primary aim of sustainable farming.

@ Tarafder, I feel size of the farming unit based on its type is important because some farming unit show assured economic and natural benefits. The practices you mentioned can be observed better when farming unit is not in distress and farming is a way of living on the farm.

Narinderpal Singh As per my personal field work, productivity is better in small farms and mixed cropping systems. Whether the net income from agriculture is adequate for sustenance of the household is a moot question. Generally, there is need for supplementing it with other sources of income.

Interesting. Following.

@ Murray ji, I agree with you as per my field work. Yes, the small unit supplemented with non farm inccome seems more sustainable.

Two views:

1) the term 'small' indicates that these farms are so small that they can't disturb nature and hence are sustainable. Due mainly to their smallness, these farms use little external inputs (agrochemicals) that actually cause a disturbance. Therefore, by themselves, they are nice and are sustainable.

2) But globally, they are not sustainable. Small farms pay huge sacrifices for the global unsustainable actions. When we see these days, due to increased population and heavy urbanization; small farms can't feed the big urban populations with their small (limited) capacity.

I think the ff article has all answers to this question.

@ Narinderpal, sustainability depends on the management i.e. how nicely you are managing your farm in terms of production, soil and environmental health and marketing. Your farm size may be small/marginal, medium or bigger. One can choose the size depends on the resources and avenues.

@ Tarafdar, Specialization is a never ending process but natural resources conservation is difficult to sustained under every environment. If farm size can effect specialization then why it is sustainable neutral? I think sustainability also depends upon natural flow of life alongwith management principles

interesting issue

Small farming units in my opinion are not more sustainable because they lack room for proper practice of sustainable practices such as fallowing, rotation, green manure cover cropping, mechanization and efficiency, economies of scale etc.

The farm units do not have to be small or large, but rather depend on the application of what is required by sustainable agriculture, but in large farm units, the application is better, easier and more organized.

Sir in addition to main enterprise are required application also depends upon size of the farming family? If so we may add some more parameters to have better optimization for sustainable farming!

Certainly, being agriculture dependent, most of the production has been from small farming units only since ancient times. Though the governments have been introducing an end number of development programmes for agricultural development, the same has not reached the marginalized farmers in the country. The farmers never look back and waited for the governments incentives and they are always in frontline to providing food and income to the nation. so, absolutely small farming units are always sustaining in the process of production, income and employment Creation.

@ Ashok ji, As per my field experience it also looks like these units are more eco friendly too because comparative lesser straw burning was there because of alternative uses in traditional way.

interesting issue

Generally this is correct.

farm size is an important component for sustainable agriculture although the intensity of agriculture should be consider for sustainable agriculture and natural resource conservation.

Generally this is correct.

Dear Dr Narinderpal Singh . Yes. Small farms are also better at conserving the natural resource base than larger farms. For example, in the U.S., small farms preserve 17% of the land as natural forest, compared to only 5% on large farms. What's more, they devote more than twice as much of their land to soil-improving practices. See the link: https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/how-small-farms-can-sustainably-feed-the-future-45baf2ef6b4e#:~:text=Small%20farms%20are%20also%20better,land%20to%20soil%2Dimproving%20practices.

Kindly check also the following useful link: http://sustainabilitycommunity.springernature.com/posts/are-small-farms-better

Also check please the following useful RG link: Article Are Small Farms Sustainable by Nature?

The following RG link is also very useful: Article Small Farms and Sustainable Development: Is Small More Sustainable?

Kindly check also the following very good RG link: Article Agricultural sustainability of small-scale farms in Lacluta,...

Yes, there are.

Please, see the following helpful link:

https://www.iatp.org/sites/default/files/Benefits_of_Small_Farm_Agriculture.htm

not necessarily, especially if we consider the economic aspect. Medium to large sustainable production systems tend to perform better from an economic point of view. Same for job creation, biomass production, etc.

Farm size is an important component of sustainable agriculture although planting intensity and agricultural investment must be taken into account for sustainable agriculture to conserve, maintain and develop natural resources.

@ Dr Juan, I think there is no optimum point for farm size because it depends upon lot of socio-economic and agro-climatic factors. Based upon these factors we may try optimization. In general i just want to consider two size; one small and other large based upon situational considerations. If economic return is important then can we ignore the economic resilient benefits? I think villages are more agro sustainable as compared to cities.

It cannot be ignored that for small production units the transition to sustainable agriculture also implies difficulties.

http://sustainabilitycommunity.springernature.com/posts/are-small-farms-better

Highland agricultural system is considered as a social-ecological system where livelihood of such community is closely interconnected with natural ecosystem, practically ecosystem services (provisioning services) such as land, water, biodiversity, and non-timber forest product (NTFPs). There are a number of factors including climate factors (water shortage, disaster, temperature change, extreme event and seasonal change) that put pressure on and impact livelihood. However, impacts of climate change on livelihood indeed vary across heterogeneity of specific social-ecological context at place. Thus, the unit of analysis should be well identified and stratified into social-ecological subsystems prior to risk and vulnerability to climate change assessment, particularly in the sense to reflect performance to their livelihood analysis interaction between community and ecological services and livelihood capital before climate change risk and vulnerability assessment in food security context. The four pillars of food security are availability, accessibility, stability and utilization. Indicators of food security are developed using participatory rural appraisal (PRA) in order to obtain the appropriate indicators for the livelihood community context. The assessment would be food security levels responding to impacts of climate change from the past to the present.

In addition, the system is dynamic and changing all the time with the risks of climate change in the future. It is expected that the food security context will change. Therefore, risk and coping capacity needs to be assessed under the livelihood performance context and climate change trends in the future to design of such adaptation. It does not only respond to the present risk and vulnerability, but rather to be applicable and robust to cope with the future risk of farm typology. Therefore, the design of adaptation using CSA concept to suit each social-ecological sub-system is needed. Thereafter, these CSA alternatives have to be assessed against the future risk to support selection of CSA design using food security and greenhouse gas emission indicators that could enhance resilience of highland social-ecological system

@ Dear all,

Thank you so much for your kind contribution!!

I think we all agree that small farming is important but it is not free from the related challenges. Still many of us do not agree with the size for sustainable development.

May you please put some more light on issues for development work or issues to sustain the on going life !!