Changing crop management improves farm level productivity and profitability for smallholder farmers in northern India

Cropping practices such as diversification, intensification and conservation agriculture-based management, which provide productivity and economic benefits to farmers, have been tested across northern India; however, farmers' adoption rate of these technologies remains low. A key reason for poor adoption rates of improved practices is the difficulty in enabling farmers, extension officers and policymakers to understand the likely farm-level trade-offs and benefits of these practices. Simulation models which integrate resources and activities (i.e. crop and livestock production, economics, and labour availability) across the whole farm can be used to examine the trade-offs and benefits of alternative farming systems. This study examined changes in farm-level productivity and profitability over a 20-year simulation window under a range of cropping system interventions for four…