Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021) 100089

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Current Research in Environmental Sustainability

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Sustainability analysis of integrated farms in coastal India

Purnabha Dasgupta a, Rupak Goswami a,*, Somsubhra Chakraborty b, Subhrajit Saha c
a
Integrated Rural Development and Management Faculty Centre, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama,
Narendrapur, Kolkata 700103, India
b
Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, India
c
University of the Virgin Islands, RR1 Box 10,000, Kingshill, St. Croix 00850-9781, U.S. Virgin Islands

A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords:
Integrated farming system Integrated farming systems (IFS) have emerged as an effective means to achieve long-term sustainability in
Sustainability assessment smallholder agriculture, particularly in developing countries. IFS can enhance farm sustainability in stressed
Sustainability indicators ecosystems, and their sustainability must be studied to achieve the long-term sustainability of coastal agro-
Drivers of sustainability ecosystems. The study’s objective was to assess the sustainability of representative IFS of coastal West Bengal,
Farm types India, examine the relative performance of social, economic, and ecological dimensions of farm sustainability,
Coastal ecosystem
find key sustainability indicators, and identify the factors of IFS’s sustainability. Another objective of the study
Sundarbans
was to suggest an indicative farm typology that encompasses a variety of alternative paths to farm viability.
Using a composite indicator based on a synthesized indicator framework for small-scale farms, we assessed the
sustainability of 140 IFS in coastal West Bengal, India. Farmers on the highly sustainable farms effectively
collected and utilized sweet water, produced on-farm biomass, and used sustainable farming practices. These
practices, along with the remittances provided by migrant family members, improved agricultural productivity,
profitability, and living conditions of farm families. Classification and regression tree (CART) analysis identified
that farm size, soil fertility, and non-farm income shaped the sustainability of the IFS. However, the pathways to
sustainability were differed depending on the farm types. The study also identified the farms that overcame the
trade-off among social, economic, and ecological sustainability dimensions. Future research may explore how
these farms may be used to achieve ‘strong’ agricultural sustainability in the coastal agroecosystems.

1. Introduction
Sustainably feeding the growing population and sustaining over 500
million smallholder farmers against climate risks and market instability
has become the major challenge of today’s agriculture (Lowder et al.,
2016; Cui et al., 2018). Sustainability of these resource-poor smallholder
systems needs a departure from external-input dependent agriculture
and a move towards a better farm resource integration planning to
achieve multiple outcomes from their farms (Amekawa et al., 2010;
Kremen et al., 2012; Altieri et al., 2015). Small farmers worldwide
have demonstrated diverse alternative systems models to achieve
multiple system outcomes and enhanced system resilience (Little and
Edwards, 2003; Kurashima et al., 2019; Ramanathan et al., 2020).
These systems employ family labour and endogenous farm resources
to adjust for cli- matic variation, unpredictable market, and society’s
food culture (Netting, 1993; Poulton et al., 2010; van der Ploeg, 2013;
van Vliet et al., 2015). Many south-east Asian countries have also
designed their policies
to support sustainable intensification and innovative land-use practices,
integrated farming systems (IFS) being the most important (Devendra
et al., 2000; Tipraqsa et al., 2007; Behera and France, 2016). These
adaptive farming systems represent a farm’s responses to multiple
stresses and trends in the biophysical, socio-cultural, ethical, and policy
environments (Gosnell et al., 2019). Sustainability assessment of these
farms may help understand the nature of their adaptive responses to
remain in the business, which is essential for designing appropriate
research and extension strategies.
There is scant literature on the sustainability aspects of integrated
farming systems. The majority of these pieces of evidence are related to
IFS’s potential as a sustainable farming system (Korikanthimath and
Manjunath, 2009; Gill et al., 2009), its multifunctionality (Tipraqsa
et al., 2007; Dasgupta et al., 2015), or its suitability in stressed agro-
ecosystems (Radhamani et al., 2003; Kuruvilla and Thomas, 2009).
However, explicit sustainability assessment of IFS is rare (Pacini et al.,
2003), primarily using multi-criteria assessment (Dasgupta et al., 2017),

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: goswamirupak@gmail.com (R. Goswami).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crsust.2021.100089
Received 22 March 2021; Received in revised form 6 September 2021; Accepted 8 September 2021
Available online 14 September 2021
2666-0490/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 P. Dasgupta et
which are otherwise being used in other contexts of sustainability
studies (Talukder and Saifuzzaman, 2016; Alary et al., 2020). Although
the sustainability issue has long been associated with IFS, its assessment
has been scarce and non-existent in India.
The sustainability of these IFSs needs to be assessed and documented
to understand the sustainability indicators’ relative performances and
their interrelationships. Such assessments are essential for identifying
the pressure points in their farming systems to improve system perfor-
mance leading to informed advice and public action (Zahm et al., 2019).
Scholars and practitioners have developed several sustainability
assessment tools and applied them to diverse contexts worldwide
(Talukder and Blay-Palmer, 2017; Janker and Mann, 2020). However,
assessing the sustainability of integrated small-scale farms in developing
nations is challenging because of the complex interrelationship
among farm components and the multifunctional nature of farming
(Goswami et al., 2017). Smallholder systems typically demonstrate
high crop di- versity, employment of family labour, defined transfer of
tenure rights, and autonomy in management decisions (Netting, 1993;
van der Ploeg, 2013). Such multidimensionality challenges developing
an appropriate indicator framework and aggregation of indicators into
a single mean- ingful metric that balances social, economic, and
ecological dimensions of sustainability (Binder and Feola, 2013). Also,
indicators are func- tional at different system hierarchies and time-
scale (Goswami et al., 2017). Hence, sustainability assessment of the
evolving and alternative forms of farming systems should capture the
complexity of small farms covering all possible sustainability
dimensions at different spatio-
temporal scales.
The coastal saline region of West Bengal, India, experiences frequent
inundation during high tide, high salinity in the soil during summer,
water scarcity in the dry months, and flood-like situations throughout
the monsoon (as the region is situated below the sea level) (Misra et al.,
2017). Such climatic variations and biotic and abiotic stresses make the
farming systems fragile, unproductive, and unprofitable (Mandal,
2019), leading to poverty and recursive migration (Hajra and Ghosh,
2018). To fight the biophysical constraints and diversified household
demand, the farmers of these areas started changing their land-use
system to integrated farming and later introduced resource intensifica-
tion methods to optimize the system productivity and efficiency (CSSRI,
2014; Mandal et al., 2013). Over time, thousands of farmers adopted and
modified such integrated land-use systems (Bandyopadhyay et al., 2009;
Basu et al., 2009). The diversity of integrated farming systems with
different styles and complexity of resource management demonstrates
different restructuring patterns in the farming system of this region.
Accounting for the farming system’s complexity by developing an
appropriate indicator framework and composite index may help us
develop a meaningful metric of farm sustainability that helps decision-
makers in informed system management. There is little empirical evi-
dence generated through an indicator-based approach that looks deep
into the sustainability of the adapted farming systems such as integrated
farms anywhere in India. The available works are mostly related to tea
plantations (Ha¨ni et al., 2007; Pretty et al., 2008) and dairy
farms (Chand et al., 2015).
Many of the sustainability problems in socio-ecological systems
are problems of complex systems (Levin et al., 2013). In the context of
farming system study, these complexities emerged due to multiple
cause-effect schemes that disciplinary expertise cannot manage (Sor-
anno et al., 2014). We posit that sustainability study should go beyond a
system description and explore the trade-off among sustainability di-
mensions, pathways through which sustainability is achieved, and the
fundamental structure and process in an agrarian society that shapes
agricultural sustainability.
The objective of this study was (a) to assess the sustainability of in-
tegrated farms in Indian Sundarbans and examine the relative perfor-
mance of their ecological, economic, and social dimensions, (b) to study
the contribution of constituent sustainability indicators to the overall
sustainability of the farms and identify the key indicators that enhanced
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Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)
farm sustainability, (c) to identify the factors that influenced the sus-
tainability of integrated farms, and (d) to develop an indicative farm
typology that encompasses different pathways to farm sustainability.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Location
Based on climate, soil, and physiography, the state of West Bengal is
divided into siX agroclimatic zones, and South 24 Parganas district
(22◦32′ N to 22.53◦N and 88◦20′ E to 88.33◦E) comes under the Coastal
Saline Zone of the state (Gajbhiye and Mandal, 2000) (Fig. 1a and b).
The climate is tropical moist, sub-humid having 1796.2 mm annual
rainfall and 35.0 ◦C - 15.6 ◦C temperature. Soil is clayey to clay loam and
characterized by high salinity in dry months. Rice is the principal field
crop grown across land situations and seasons. Spring paddy (Aus),
sesame and green gram in the early wet season (pre-Kharif), jute and wet-
season paddy (Aman) in the rainy season (Kharif), and wheat, oil- seeds,
pulses, and potato in the winter season (rabi) are the major crops of the
region (District Census Handbook, Government of West Bengal, 2011).
The district hosts a large number of resource-poor farmers, and in
Sundarbans Blocks, the incidence of poverty was very high (World Bank,
2014) citing the report of an independent household survey). Salinity
and inundation during monsoon months are the significant challenges of
cultivation. Monocropping, non-remunerative farming, and climatic
vagaries lead to recursive migration of rural youth during the lean
agricultural months, and farmers often take up diversification of farm
enterprises as a risk averting strategy (Saha and Goswami, 2020; De
et al., 2005). Salient information of the study locations is given in
Table S1 (Supplementary Information).
2.2. Sampling scheme
Out of 29 community development blocks of the district, Pathar-
pratima (Fig. 1c) and Baruipur (Fig. 1d Blocks were selected purpose-
fully because of the prevalence of integrated farms, ongoing IFS projects
funded by government and non-government agencies, and availability
of and access to farm-level data. Scholars have widely reported such a
purposive selection of regions in agricultural sustainability study
(Somboonsuke et al., 2001; Zhen et al., 2005; Santiago-Brown et al.,
2015). Moreover, these two blocks were different in terms of their dis-
tance from the sea and towns. Patharpratima is located nearer to the Bay
of Bengal, and Baruipur is nearer to the city of Kolkata. We argue that –
due to higher salinity, biotic stresses, and nature of farming – resource
utilization strategy and sustainability would be different in these farms
than those located away from the bay area and near to town markets,
thus representing the diversity of integrated farms in the coastal areas
(Emerson and MacFarlane, 1995; Vayssi`eres et al., 2011; PradeleiX et
al., 2012).
For the selection of villages, the researchers consulted with two
grassroots-level NGOs engaged in the promotion of IFS in selected vil-
lages of the blocks, the agricultural extension officer of the respective
blocks, and gram panchayat (village level self-governing body) members
associated with the promotion of water harvesting structures in that area
under different government schemes. We prepared a list of integrated
farms from the identified villages through Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA)
(Chambers, 2002). Researchers ensured that the farms had less than two
hectares of land and represented diverse combinations of farm enter-
prises (Tipraqsa et al., 2007). The researchers preferred that the farmers
actively engage with the local NGOs since data on individual farms
needed active cooperation of the farm family. We selected 156 geo-
referenced integrated farms (0.13–0.60 ha landholding) from siX villages
(Paruldaha, Moutala, Dakhin Sibganj, Indrapur, Digambarpur and
Ramganga) under five Gram Panchayats (Brindakhali, Patharpratima-I, G-
Plot, Digambarpur and Ramganga) of Baruipur and Patharpratima Blocks
(Fig. 1c and d; Table S2, Supplementary
 P. Dasgupta et Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)

Fig. 1. Location map of the study – (a) West Bengal state in India; (b) The Coastal Zone of West Bengal; (c) The location of farms in Patharpratima; (d) The location of
farms in Baruipur.

Information). of ecological and livelihoods concern of small farms, an essential feature

of smallholder farms in developing countries (Goswami et al., 2017).
That is why, for the initial scouting of indicators, the researchers
2.3. Selection of indicators for sustainability assessment
developed a theoretical framework (Fig. 2) for the sustainability
assessment of smallholder farms by amalgamating established ecolog-
An indicator is a quantitative or qualitative measure grounded on
ical and livelihood frameworks (Rao and Rogers, 2006; Goswami et
empirical evidence against which system performance is assessed, and
al., 2017). There are distinct benefits of integrating the livelihood
relative positions of systems may be valued (Bell and Morse, 2012). The
frame- work with the ecological framework (Goswami et al., 2017).
indicators of sustainability should be able to describe and compare farm
The ecological framework establishes the causal links of human action
sustainability across space and time. Although a large number of
and natural resource interactions, and the livelihoods framework
indicator-framework for farm-level sustainability assessment is avail-
captures the changes in the socio-economic, vulnerability and asset
able (de Olde et al., 2016), they often fail to capture the multidimen-
conditions (Rao and Rogers, 2006). Integrated farms represent the
sionality and multifunctionality of agriculture (Binder and Feola, 2013).
interactions between the framework’s asset components and
Also, a paucity of farm-level tools successfully captures the relationship
livelihood strategies,

3
 P. Dasgupta et
Fig. 2. Framework for sustainability assessment of Integrated Farming Systems (adapted from Goswami et al., 2017).
where farm-level decisions using available assets are made based on the
prevailing structures, processes, and vulnerabilities. We amalgamate the
SL framework (DFID (Department for International Development),
1999) with the DPSIR framework (OECD, 2003), where ‘driving force’
corresponds to ‘livelihood strategy’, ‘pressure’ to ‘asset utilization
pattern’, ‘state’ to ‘state of the assets and vulnerabilities’, ‘impact’ to
‘livelihood outcomes’, ‘response’ to ‘changes in livelihood strategy,
vulnerability context, and policy/structures, processes’ (Goswami et al.,
2017). The synthesized model helped us identify indicators across all
dimensions of farm sustainability. We further screened these indicators
through a ‘funnel’ of smallholder farm characteristics that link farm
activities with the farming systems’ multifunctional outcomes (Koo-
hafkan et al., 2012; Dasgupta et al., 2017).
Based on the synthesized framework, we scouted 85 indicators
covering social, economic, and ecological dimensions of sustainability.
Twenty-siX natural resource management experts rated these initial sets
of indicators against a 4-point Likert type scale (4 = highly acceptable; 3
= moderately acceptable; 2 = less acceptable; 1 = least acceptable). The
experts considered smallholder farmers’ characteristics, with whom
they had been working for several years in a similar context. Such judges
rating is reported in the sustainability assessment exercise in agriculture
(Gowda and Jayaramaiah, 1998). For the screening of the final set of
indicators, the researchers used the weighted mean score of expert rat-
ing along with four more criteria, namely the availability of data, cost of
measuring the indicator, clarity of the indicator to the rater, and
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Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)
redundancy among the indicators (Dasgupta et al., 2017). The weighted
score was computed by the ‘number of responses recorded under a point
of the rating scale’, multiplied by its value (1 or 2 or 3 or 4) and divided
by total responses received. Such expert-led rating and screening of in-
dicators are well-grounded in sustainability assessment literature (Hai
et al., 2014; Roy et al., 2014). EXpert rating resulted in selecting 15
ecological indicators, 17 economic indicators, and 13 social indicators
(Table S3, Supplementary Information).
2.4. Data collection and processing for sustainability assessment
The Academic Council of the Rural Development and Management
Faculty Centre of Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and
Research Institute approved this study, Integrated at the Meeting No. 17
dated 08 April 2013 (Ref: RKMVU/NDP/AC-BoS/MEET/2013), which
took care of the institutional reviews of all the academic and funded
research projects at the Faculty Centre. We collected primary data using
a standardized interview protocol from 156 farms after procuring their
informed consent. Researchers conducted personal interviews with the
family members and visited the farms to record biophysical information
such as soil samples, plant species counts, among others. A hand-held
Garmin eTrex GPS receiver (Garmin Ltd., Schaffhausen, Switzerland)
recorded individual farms’ GPS locations. After screening and elimi-
nating discrepancies in the data, the research team retained 140 entries
in the database.
 P. Dasgupta et
2.5. Composite sustainability index
Sustainability indicators are considered essential elements for
assessing sustainable farming systems (Talukder et al., 2017; Slatmo
et al., 2017). Indicators can be used individually or combined into a
single composite index for rendering comparability across space and
time (Dantsis et al., 2010). Based on the study objectives and nature
of data, different types of normalizations, indicator weighting, and ag-
gregations are used (Talukder et al., 2017). We encapsulated environ-
mental, economic, and social sustainability pillars into a composite
sustainability index, which is commonly used for the sustainability
assessment of socio-biological systems (Go´mez-Limo´n and
Sanchez- Fernandez, 2010; Dantsis et al., 2010). We also computed the
ecolog- ical, economic, and social sustainability of IFS separately using
the 15 ecological, 17 economic, and 13 social indicators. The
composite index was not meant to generate an absolute value of farm
sustainability but to examine their relative status and determine the
factors that shaped their values. We normalized individual indicators
for freeing them from different ranges and units of measurement
using the following formula (Freudenberg, 2003) –.
)
Iij –Iil
NIi = × 100 (1)
(I –I
)ih il
NIi is the normalized value of indicator i; Iij = value of jth observation
of ith indicator; Iil = lowest value of ith indicator; Iih = highest value of
ith indicator.
The output was a normalized indicator with a dimensionless range
(0,100), where 0 represents the worst possible value (i.e. the least sus-
tainable), and 100 is the best possible value (i.e. most sustainable) of an
indicator. The normalized indicators were weighted equally and
aggregated linearly (OECD-Joint Research Centre-European Commis-
sion, 2008; Go´mez-Limo´n and Sanchez-Fernandez, 2010) using
the following equation –
∑1 n
SI =c NI (2)
n i=1
i probability of higher Secon existed even at a higher range of S ecol.
SIc is the value of the composite sustainability indicator, NI i is the
value of the ith normalized indicator, and n is the total number of
indicators.
2.6. Data analysis
We preferred Classification and Regression Tree (CART) over other
forms of regression because of the simultaneous presence of categorical,
discrete and scale variables in the model and the uncertainty of multi-
variate normality assumptions for the whole dataset (Zheng et al.,
2009). The violin plots were developed by Plot.ly Chart Studio (Plotly
Technologies Inc. Collaborative data science. Montr´eal, QC, 2015.
https:
//plot.ly); all other analyses, including heatmap, were performed by
SPSS Version 19 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, USA). For understanding the trade-
off among sustainability dimensions, the generalized additive model
(GAM) (Hastie and Tibshirani, 1987) was implemented [i.e. Y = g(X1) +
f(X2)] to link the ecological and economic sustainability with social
sustainability of the IFSs. Here, X1 and x2 denote ecological sustain-
ability and economic sustainability, respectively, and y indicates
social sustainability. GAM with interaction =
[i.e. Yg(X1, X2)] was also
fitted. In this research, we implemented GAM via the mgcv (MiXed
GAM computation vehicle) package in R (Wood and Wood, 2015;
Wood, 2017). The visualization of the pathway were performed using
network analysis by UCINET 6 for Windows Version 6.662 (Borgatti et
al., 2002) and NetDraw 2.166 (Borgatti, 2002).
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Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)
3. Results
3.1. Sustainability of the integrated farms and interactions among
sustainability dimensions
The distribution of sustainability scores demonstrated differential
variations among the integrated farms (Fig. 3). The mean Ssoc (49.11) of
these farms were relatively higher than the mean S ecol (39.4) and mean
Secon (24.3). However, the variability of S econ (sd = 0.42) was lower than
Secol (sd = 0.54) and Ssoc (sd = 0.67). This observation cannot put for-
ward a conclusive claim about the nature of sustainability in the studied
farms since the measurements of indicators were relative, and substan-
tial collinearity of indicators could exist within a single sustainability
dimension. However, since all the sustainability indicators’ critical role
was suggested by the theoretical framework and experts’ rating, and we
treated all the indicators equally, the mean scores reasonably hint at the
relative performance of farm sustainability’s social, economic and
ecological dimensions. For example, although landholding was corre-
lated with input cost, system productivity, and net return, we considered
each of them a constituent of economic farm sustainability. This is
because these indicators primarily represented key system management,
system property, and system performance. Hence, Fig. 3 suggests that,
within our synthesized indicator framework, the studied farms were
more sustainable socially then ecologically and was least sustainable
economically.
The IFSs were more likely (0.004–0.005) to fall in the combined
range of Secon (20–25) and Ssoc (50–55) (Fig. 4a). A small probability
(0.0005) was still observed with a higher value of Ssoc (65–70) and the
same range of Secon. A lower probability (0.0005–0.0015) of higher Secon
(33–36) corresponded a lesser value of Ssoc (45–50). These observations
suggested the predominance of IFSs with high social but low
economic sustainability, which could still be enhanced on both the
dimensions involving little or no trade-off. The IFSs showed higher
probability density (0.0045–0.005) for a combination of S econ (range:
20–25) and Secol (range: 35–40) (Fig. 4b). Interestingly, a small
Moreover, much higher Secol could still be found with a similar range of
Secon. The majority of the IFSs were found with a combination of a
lower range of Secon and Secol. However, both these dimensions could be
enhanced without conceding any trade-off. The majority of IFSs were
more likely to be found at a given combination of Secol (35–40) and Secol
(50–55). Interestingly, both the sustainability dimensions could be
found at a higher range of sus- tainability values, although with a
more negligible probability (Fig. 4c).
3.2. The relative performance of sustainability indicators
Next, we studied the indicators that performed relatively better in
highly sustainable farms. We found no consistent increase in the indi-
cator values from the lowest decile to the highest decile of sustainability
values (Fig. 5). A lighter patch at the middle of Fig. 5 represents the
economic indicators (indicators 21 through 31), demonstrating rela-
tively lower values than the ecological and social indicators. Indicators
such as ‘internal: external input’ and ‘perceived workload of women’
showed higher values under all deciles, and ‘biomass availability’,
‘landholding’, ‘rice-equivalent yield’, ‘B:C ratio’, and ‘savings’ demon-
strated relatively lower values under all deciles. These observations
suggested complex interactions among the constituent indicators of farm
sustainability.
Visual scrutiny of Fig. 5 also suggested that the IFSs of the highest
decile performed well in terms of a majority of indicators except – ‘depth
of groundwater’, ‘biomass availability’, ‘earthworm density’, ‘animal
species on-farm’, ‘landholding’, ‘available K2O’, ‘rice-equivalent yield’,
‘return on investment’, and ‘indebtedness’. A few indicators, namely,
‘available K2O’, ‘return on investment’, and ‘indebtedness’ was specif-
ically low in the highest decile. The unique indicators that performed
 P. Dasgupta et Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)
better in the highest decile of sustainability were – ‘water use
efficiency’,

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 P. Dasgupta et
Fig. 4. Probability density of integrated farming systems with combinations of sustainability dimensions – a) Social sustainability and Economic sustainability; b)
Ecological sustainability and Economic sustainability; c) Social sustainability and Ecological sustainability. AXes are sustainability scores for a dimension on a 0–
100 scale.
‘quality of irrigation water’, ‘biomass availability’, ‘soil pH’, ‘available
N’, ‘available P2O5’, ‘landholding’, ‘off-farm income’, ‘rice equivalent
yield’, ‘system net return’, ‘B:C ratio’, ‘distance from market’,
‘savings’, ‘access of women over farm profit’, and ‘housing
condition’.
3.3. The drivers of sustainability
We used CART analysis to identify the factors influencing farm sus-
tainability. Keeping the overall farm sustainability score as a target
variable (n = 140), we identified ‘system net return per annum’ as the
first splitting variable (Fig. 6a). Farmers who had less than a system net
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Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)
Fig. 3. Distribution of 140 integrated farms ac-
cording to their ecological, economic, and social
sustainability scores. Dots on the left are the
ecological, economic, and social sustainability score
of individual farms. The boX-plots bear conventional
meanings, i.e. caps of the vertical line are highest
and lowest values, the boX represents the inter-
quartile range of the distribution, and the horizon-
tal line is the median value. The shaded area is the
non-parametric kernel density function of the
distribution.
return of INR 1,90,170 (~USD1330) (N-1, n =89) had a mean sus-
tainability score of 36.851, whereas farms earning more than INR
1,90,170 (~USD1330) system net return had a mean sustainability score
of 40.322 (TN-2; n = 51). Node 1 is further split by ‘soil EC’ of the farms,
—1
with less than 1.52 dSm value leading to a mean sustainability score of
36.309 (N-3, n = 78) and a mean score of 40.7 for farms having more
—1
than 1.52 dSm soil EC (N-4, n = 11). Node 3, in turn, is again split by
‘soil organic carbon’. Farms with less than 0.38 t/ha soil organic carbon
showed a mean sustainability score of 34.977 (N-5, n= 43), whereas, for
farms having more than 0.38 t/ha soil organic carbon led to a mean
sustainability score of 37.945 (N-6, n = 35). Node 4 is further split by
 P. Dasgupta et Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)

Fig. 5. Heatmap showing the relative performance of sustainability indicators in IFSs with different levels of sustainability. The cell colours represent the mean score
of an indicator for all IFSs of that decile. The Y-axis represents the deciles of overall sustainability score of the IFSs; the X-axis accommodates 45 sustainability
indicators. Values of indicators are rescaled into a 0–100 scale from their original value.
1-Depth of groundwater, 2-Water use efficiency, 3-Quality of irrigation water, 4-Biomass availability, 5-Earthworm density, 6-Soil EC, 7-Soil pH, 8-Soil organic
carbon, 9-Available N, 10-Available P2O5, 11-Available K2O, 12-Sustainable farm management score, 13-Number of multifunctional plant species, 14-Perceived
biotic stress,15-Animal species on-farm, 16-Landholding, 17-Input cost, 18-Internal:EXternal input, 19-Tenure status, 20-Off-farm income, 21-Rice equivalent
yield, 22-System net return, 23-Return on investment, 24-B:C ratio, 25-Income diversity, 26-Land productivity, 27-Labour productivity, 28-Distance from market, 29-
Gender gap in earning, 30-Employment created on-farm, 31-Savings, 32-Indebtedness, 33-Farming experience, 34-Family size, 35-Perceived workload of women, 36-
Food security, 37-Education, 38-Institutional affiliation, 39-Number of migrants, 40-Duration of migration, 41-Women ’s control over resources, 42-Women’s access
over resources, 43-Access of women over farm profit, 44-Perceived working and living condition, 45-Housing condition (Supplementary Information).

‘migration period in the number of months’. A value of fewer than 1.5

months resulted in a mean sustainability score of 38.193 (TN-7, N = 6) the provisions for irrigating crops.
and a value above 1.5 months recorded a score of 43.704 (TN-8, N = 5).
Node 5 is split by ‘total land in ha’, and the farms with less than 0.365 ha
3.4. A typology of farms based on their sustainability
land demonstrated a mean sustainability score of 34.571 (N-9, N = 38);
farms above 0.365 ha land showed a mean score of 38.064 (TN-10, N
In retrospect, reading the CART, we see that farms with relatively
= 5). Node 6 is again split by ‘soil organic carbon’ indicating its over-
higher system net return achieved higher sustainability (TN-2). These
arching importance in determining farm sustainability. Soil organic
farms showed the highest economic sustainability (Table 1) and were
carbon below 0.415 t/ha led to a mean farm sustainability score of
characterized by joint extended families and more extensive landhold-
39.066 (TN-11, N = 20) and soil organic carbon below 0.415 t/ha
ings. One or more members of the family moved outside the village to
resulted in a mean farm sustainability score of 36.449 (N-12, N = 15).
earn a non-farm income. Farms with relatively lower system net return
Node 9 and Node 12 were further split by the ‘soil EC’ and ‘total land in
(branches of N-1; Fig. 6a) could still achieve the highest sustainability,
ha’. The mean sustainability of the farms was higher (35.783) when the
—1 even in soils with higher salinity, when member/s of their family
salinity was higher than 0.92 dSm (TN-14, N = 21), and the farms with
migrated (TN-8). Although handful in number, this type of farms
lesser than 0.185 ha land (TN-15, N=5) resulted in a higher mean
demonstrated the highest ecological and social sustainability – despite
sustainability score (38.25). These observations suggest that although
smaller holding, higher soil salinity, and depleted groundwater –
soil EC, soil organic carbon and landholding had an overarching effect
perhaps because of their system diversity, nearness to market, good
on farm sustainability, both soil organic carbon and farm size demon-
quality of irrigation water (captured in water harvesting structures), and
strated different directions of impact at different ranges of values. e.g.,
prolonged migration of family member. TN-7 was similar in character-
landholding enhanced sustainability score both at a higher (0.365 ha)
istics, only with negligible migration from farm families. Another group
and lower value (0.185 ha).
of farms with lower system net return achieved relatively higher sus-
The variable importance in the CART model corresponded to their
tainability when their farm’s soil had lower soil EC and higher soil
significant correlations with farm sustainability scores. From the
organic carbon (TN-11). These farms were characterized by larger
normalized importance of variables, we find that the most critical fac-
families with migrants and larger water-holding structure; other pa-
tors affecting farm sustainability were ‘system net return per annum’,
rameters were neither very high nor low. Despite small in number, the
‘land holding’, ‘soil EC (dSm-1)’, ‘non-farm income’, ‘soil organic car- relatively larger farms (0.47 ha) with the least soil organic carbon (0.37
bon’, and ‘span of migration in the number of months’ (Fig. 6b). Figs. 6a t/ha) could still achieve higher sustainability (TN-10). These farms were
and 6b jointly establish the importance of farm resources (landholding mostly (80%) managed by women, had smaller family size (5.8), a lesser
and system net return), soil properties (soil EC, soil organic carbon), and number of subsystems on farms (3.8), perhaps due to lack of family la-
socio-cultural context (migration period and non-farm income) associ- bour and one migrant in the family. On the other hand, a group of farms
ated with the sustainability of integrated farms. These variables were (TN-13) with lower system net return, lower soil organic carbon, smaller
followed by ‘presence of farm pond’ and ‘depth of groundwater table’, land holding, and least soil salinity demonstrated the lowest farm sus-
tainability. These farms had large family sizes, reached groundwater but

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P. Dasgupta et Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)

Fig. 6a. Variables affecting the overall sustainability of the integrated farming systems.

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 P. Dasgupta et Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)

Fig. 6b. Normalized importance of factors influencing the sustainability of integrated farming systems. The reference line is the mean overall importance.

Table 1
Characterization of terminal nodes with differential magnitudes of sustainability.
TN-2 TN-7 TN-8 TN-10 TN-11 TN-13 TN-14 TN-15 TN-16

Ecological sustainability score 40.64b 40.97b 49.1a 36.72bc 41.18b 33.2c 37.06bc 42.5b 39.02b
Economic sustainability score 27.12a 22.41ab 23.48ab 26.23ab 22.93ab 21.89b 22.62ab 23.03ab 21.48b
Social sustainability score 51.84ab 49.27abc 55.43a 50.97abc 51.66ab 43.25c 46.26bc 45.93bc 43.42c
Family size 9.7a 8.83ab 6.8bc 5.8c 8.85ab 7.94abc 7.86abc 8.2abc 7.6abc
Land holding 0.44a 0.23b 0.25b 0.47a 0.3ab 0.18b 0.16b 0.13b 0.28ab
Depth of groundwater (m) 39.86ab 36.67ab 49.8a 45.2ab 40.55ab 45.24ab 40.95ab 31.6b 41.8ab
Soil Organic C 0.38c 0.37c 0.39c 0.32d 0.41bc 0.34d 0.33d 0.45a 0.43ab
Soil EC 1.06bc 1.62a 1.65a 0.78 cd 0.83 cd 0.47d 1.25b 0.62d 0.49d
#Sub-systems 4.88ab 4.67ab 4.6ab 3.8b 4.5ab 4.24ab 4.43ab 4.6ab 5.3a
Size of the water harvesting structure .055b .053b .054b .046c .06a .048c .047c .064a .061a
#Migrated members 1.24ab 0.5b 1.4a 0.8ab 1.25ab 0.88ab 0.95ab 1.0ab 0.9ab
Span of migration 2.3a 0.33b 2.8a 2.2a 2.6a 1.59bc 2.1a 2.4a 2.0a
Market distance (km) 1.49ab 1.5ab 1.2b 1.4 1.5ab 1.82a 1.62ab 1.6ab 1.4
% of women-managed farm 2 16.7 40 80 20 11.8 33.3 20 40
% of the farm with good quality irrigation 47 66.7 60 60 50 17.7 28.6 20 30

Figures in the table are the mean of variables for a terminal node. Featured variables significantly varied across terminal nodes. Data preceding different letters differ
significantly, as found by Duncan’s Multiple Range Test/Tamhane’s T2 (for unequal group variance)

unsuitable irrigation water, and were located away from the market. TN-
15, despite the smallest holding size, large family, and high salinity,
could achieve limited sustainability because of soil with the highest
organic carbon, reached groundwater (31.6 m), larger sizes of water
harvesting structure (0.064 ha), and more than one migrant in the
family.
To focus on the performance of farm types of higher sustainability,
we selected four terminal nodes (TN-2, TN-8, TN-10, TN-11) to examine
their performance in terms of ecological, economic, and social indicators
of farm sustainability (Fig. 7a, b, c). TN-2 did better than others in terms
of – available N, non-farm income, rice-equivalent yield, system net
return, B:C ratio, land productivity, labour productivity, savings, family
size, food security, and institutional affiliation. We may call these group
‘sustaining through productive farming and non-farm income’. FT-8
fared relatively better than other TN in terms of groundwater reach,
quality of irrigation water, biomass availability, soil EC, soil pH, avail-
able P2O5, sustainable farm management score, presence of
multifunctional plant species on the farm, internal: external input, in-
come diversity, farming experience, education, number of migrants in
family, duration of migration by family members, perceived working
and living condition, and housing condition. We name this group ‘bio-
diverse farm supplemented with off-farm income’. TN-10 performed
relatively better in terms of – the quality of irrigation water, available
K2O, perceived biotic stress, animal species on the farm, landholding,
input cost, tenure status, the gender gap in earning, employment created
on-farm, institutional affiliation, women’s contrrol over resources,
women’s access over resources, and access of women over farm profit.
These may be called ‘large feminized farmssupplemented with off-farm
income’. TN-11 did better in water use efficiency, soil organic C, return
on investment, distance from market, indebtedness, and women’s
perceived workload. We call them ‘water-efficient farms supplemented
with off-farm income’.

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 P. Dasgupta et Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)

Fig. 7. Radar plot depicting four selected farm types (terminal nodes in Fig. 6a) in terms of (a) Ecological indicators, (b) Economic indicators, and (c) Social in-
dicators. Indicators were rendered unidirectional following their desirability in a sustainable farm and were scaled uniformly (0—100).
[ecol1-Depth of groundwater, ecol2-Water use efficiency, ecol3-Quality of irrigation water, ecol4-Biomass availability, ecol5-Earthworm density, ecol6-Soil EC, ecol7-
Soil pH, ecol8-Soil organic carbon, ecol9-Available N, ecol10-Available P2O5, ecol11-Available K2O, ecol12-Sustainable farm management score, ecol13- Number of
multifunctional plant species, ecol14-Perceived biotic stress, ecol15-Animal species on farm; econ1-Landholding, econ2-Input cost, econ3-Internal: EXternal input,
econ4-Tenure status, econ5-non-farm income, econ6-Rice equivalent yield, econ7-System net return, econ8-Return on investment, econ9-B:C ratio, econ10-
Income diversity, econ11-Land productivity, econ12-Labour productivity, econ13-Distance from market, econ14-Gender gap in earning, econ15- Employment created
on-farm, econ16-Savings, econ17-Indebtedness; soc1-Farming experience, soc2-Family size, soc3-Perceived workload of women, soc4-Food security, soc5-Education,
soc6-Institutional affiliation, soc7-Number of migrants, soc8-Duration of migration, soc9-Women’s control over resources, soc10- Women’s access over resources,
soc11-Access of women over farm profit, soc12-Perceived working and living condition, soc13-Housing condition].

1
 P. Dasgupta et
3.5. Pathways to sustainability
The pathways to sustainability suggest the predominant mechanisms
a group of farms used to achieve desired system outcomes and indicate
the causal links in the critical sustainability indicators that take shape
within a socio-ecological context. Based on the above analyses, we
suggested a summary of potential pathways through which the different
types of farms tried to achieve sustainability (Fig. 8). Please note, we
conceptualize environmental actions (SA and WHS) and social and
economic outcomes (PR, Gn, LC) as the causal elements in the diagram
rather than outcomes. This is primarily because of farmer’s over-
whelming emphasis on social and economic outcomes from their
farming systems. The network diagram shows that nine types of farms
(TN) used the different extent of three primary strategies, namely
migration-remittance (M-R), adoption of sustainable agricultural
methods (SA), and excavation or reform of water harvesting structure
(WHS) to achieve three outcomes, namely higher farm productivity and
profitability (PR), desired gender outcomes (G), and better living con-
ditions (LC). We see that TN-8 drew on both sustainable farming and
non-farm income, including remittance to improve their living condi-
tions and gender outcomes; TN-2 also used a similar strategy to improve
living conditions. TN-10 used both SA and N-R to achieve desirable
gender outcomes. TN-7 depended on sustainable farming to achieve
better gender outcomes and living conditions. TN-15 excavated water
harvesting structures in their small piece of land to achieve sustain-
ability outcomes.
3.6. Overcoming the trade-off in sustainability
Considering all three sustainability dimensions, we examined the
most probable range of values where IFSs of different typologies could
be found and identify the farm types who could overcome the trade-off
among different sustainability dimensions. We see that 20–28 index
score of Secon and 35–45 index score of Secol corresponded to 48–50
range of Ssoc, which together captured a large number of farms (Fig. 9). A
movement towards the (a) upper part, (b) right part, and (c) upper right
corner in the graph suggests overcoming the trade-off among S ecol, Ssoc,
and Secon, respectively. We see that several farms that sustained through
productive farming and non-farm income (Type-2) could achieve higher
Secon without any trade-off in the Secol and Ssoc. Several farms from types
2, 7, 8, and 11 enhanced Secol without any trade-off in the Secon and Ssoc.
The frequency of farm type 7, 8, and 10 was minor and less apparent in
the figure.
4. Discussion
The initial descriptive analyses of the IFS demonstrated, on average,
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Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)
Fig. 9. The generalized additive model (GAM) shows the relationship between
ecological and economic sustainability of integrated farming systems keeping
social sustainability as the target. Data points are labelled by the farm types
identified through CART (Fig. 6a). Encircled farms suggest possible ‘strong
sustainability. The p-value of the F-test to test the significance between the two
GAM models was 0.2257, indicating no difference between the two models (i.e.
no interaction between two predictors). The component plots for the additive
model are given in the Supplementary Information (Fig. S1).
more desirable social outcomes than the ecological and economic out-
comes from the IFS. The lower score of economic indicators might be
due to the subsistence nature of most of the IFSs, which were at their
initial stages of market orientation or more prone to risk reduction and
self-sufficiency (CSSRI, 2014; p.37). Moreover, in the less integrated
island areas with limited access to the market and absence of appro-
priate farmer collectives, integrated farms may end up providing
improved ecosystem services and desirable social outcomes without any
direct, substantial economic benefits (Sreedevi and Wani, 2009; Gos-
wami et al., 2016). Further, the non-remunerative farming in coastal
West Bengal is often off-set by the non-farm income earned by migrants
(Saha and Goswami, 2020) that does not reflect in the economic per-
formance of the farms in the short run but lead to desirable social out-
comes such as food security and improved living conditions (Rahman
and Mishra, 2020). While the economic sustainability suffered from
inherent system constraints such as non-remunerative farming and
imperfect market (Rose et al., 2019; Mandal, 2019), the ecological
sustainability was shaped by the constrained agroecosystem (high soil
Fig. 8. Network diagram showing indicative path-
ways to farm sustainability for different types of
farms (TN). The weight of the lines is proportionate to
tie strength. The size of the circles is scaled by the
mean sustainability score of a farm type. Deeper
shades of the circles are roughly indicative of three
ranges of
farm sizes (<0.2 ha; 0.21–0.3 ha; >0.3 ha). The shape
of the circles roughly indicates the mean soil salinity
in the farm (<1 = Circle; >1 = circle in the boX). M-R:
migration/remittance; SA: adoption of sustainable
farming methods; excavation/reform of water har-
vesting structure: WHS; farm productivity and prof-
itability: PR; gender outcomes – G: living conditions:
LC. The visualization is generated by UCINET 6 for
Windows Version 6.662 (Borgatti et al., 2002) and
NetDraw 2.166 (Borgatti, 2002).
 P. Dasgupta et
salinity and low organic carbon) (Raha et al., 2012). Moreover,
extreme climatic events were frequent in Sundarbans, and the
perturbation of the socio-ecological system often hampered the farm
resource integration and destabilized the ecological and economic
outcomes in the integrated farms (Andharia, 2020). While desired
social outcomes could still be achieved using off-farm income,
rebuilding the ecological system and establishing remunerative farming
in less integrated island areas were difficult to achieve in the short-run
(Bunce et al., 2009; Nayak et al., 2014). Differential natural resource
management and use of remittance were perhaps reflected in the more
substantial variability of ecological and social sustainability of the IFS.
We addressed these issues later in this discussion.
The interactions between different dimensions of sustainability were
complex, often involving differential degrees of trade-off. For example,
the problems of lower family income could be managed by – (a) inten-
sive farming for higher production leading to more marketable surplus,
or (b) adopting bio-diverse farming practices for reduced cost of culti-
vation, or (c) market integration through farmers’ collectives for higher
revenue or (d) livelihood diversification including migration for
securing non-farm income. While the end goal is the same (higher family
income), these four pathways involve different outcomes such as – (a)
negative environmental externalities, (b) improved soil fertility and
biodiversity, (c) improved social capital; and (d) reduced risk, lower
farm production, and improved decision-making power of farm women.
Such trade-off is unavoidable in socio-ecological systems, especially
when decisions are often taken without adequate information and
achieving short-term goals (Tenza et al., 2019). We argue that achieving
higher values along a dimension (e.g. economic) by an IFS without
conceding a negative trade-off in other dimensions (e.g. ecological or
social) is the scope of achieving ‘strong’ farm sustainability (Hediger and
Knickel, 2009) and may be studied to understand the uniqueness of the
farming system. The regions in the right or above the central high-
density regions in Fig. 4a, b, and c indicate such opportunity windows
for achieving ‘strong’ sustainability where few farms overcame the
trade-off between two sustainability dimensions. The trade-off between
sustainability parameters is well reported in the literature (Ferraro and
Gagliostro, 2017), and they mainly stem from the priority and capability
of a farm household or the policy environment that encourages sus-
tainable agriculture. For example, resource-constrained farms trying to
enhance farm income (by selling surplus produce) might pursue input-
intensive cultivation when subsidized chemical inputs are made avail-
able by extension agencies and public policy does not explicitly
encourage payments for ecosystem services. On the contrary, the pro-
duction of feminized farms can still be increased if targeted insurance is
in place and women farmers’ access to advisory services are increased.
However, interventions in the form of agricultural marketing reform,
promotion of agroecological forms of agriculture, social support mech-
anisms for vulnerability reduction, and local employment generation
affect how different dimensions of farm sustainability interact with each
other (Chaparro-Africano, 2019). For the present purpose, assuming an
equilibrium of external factors, we suggest that the ‘positively deviant’
farms in the ‘opportunity windows’ (Thornton, 2008) are explored and
taken up for further refinement by the agricultural research and exten-
sion agencies.
The indicators that represented regional farm characteristics (e.g.
depth of groundwater table, biomass availability) did not vary exten-
sively among the farms and did not differ between highly sustainable
farms and poorly sustainable farms. The indicators that distinguished
the highly sustainable farms (of highest decile) from relatively less
sustainable farms (of lowest decile) were broadly related to – ownership
and quality of natural resources (water use efficiency, quality of irri-
gation water, biomass availability, soil pH, available N, available P2O5,
landholding), and economic performance and outcomes of the farm (rice
equivalent yield, system net return, B:C ratio, distance from market,
savings, access of women over farm profit, off-farm income, and housing
condition). In the context of Sundarbans, these indicators suggested that
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Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)
larger IFSs that ensured water-harvesting and efficient use of sweet
water, planted trees on the farm for generating biomass, improved soil-
health management through resource recycling shaped their lands
ensured better productivity and profitability (Mandal et al., 2013).
Further, IFS with off-farm income might have increased savings, asset
creation (such as building a house) and investment in agriculture in the
form of quality input, which along with efficient resource use, might
have resulted in better economic performances of the farms. Supporting
evidence comes from other regions of India (Maharjan and Knerr, 2019).
Off-farm income, often derived from male outmigration, led to the
feminization of agriculture in Sundarbans, and resulted in better gender
outcomes in integrated farms (Saha and Goswami, 2020). Summarily,
we sense higher sustainability in the studied IFSs when the farm family
built water-harvesting structures on the farm, generated biomass to be
recycled in farming, and adopted improved soil health management
practices. They sent family members to earn non-farm cash income,
invested the remittance in asset creation, demonstrated higher farm
productivity and net return due to market integration, and women
increasingly enjoyed more access to and control over farm resources and
farm income.
CART analysis helped us to identify the critical factors that shaped
farm sustainability in the study region. The critical factors, namely
‘system net return per annum’, ‘landholding’, ‘soil EC (dSm-1)’, ‘non-
farm income’, ‘soil organic carbon’, and ‘span of migration in the
number of months’ represented farm resources, soil fertility, the eco-
nomic performance of the farm, and non-farm income earned through
migration. Higher system net return has become familiar to a proportion
of the integrated farms of Sundarbans. It allowed the farmer to diversify
their income through aquaculture, growing vegetables on raised banks
of ponds, and encouraged integration among farm resources (Ahmed
et al., 2014). Farming, as a consequence, became innovative (such as the
introduction of a new enterprise using any extra input) and more self-
reliant (Faruque et al., 2017). Many of these farms in Sundarbans
were seasonally affected by high soil salinity, which rendered cultiva-
tion difficult. In such farms, farmers invested more in climate adapt-
ability to maintain the soil’s long-term fertility (Jha et al., 2018). Also,
as mentioned above, migration-led non-farm income directly improved
a farm family’s socio-economic outcomes and could enhance investment
in farming and building resilience (Maharjan and Knerr, 2019).
CART analysis allowed us to construct an IFS typology based on their
sustainability, hitherto unaddressed in IFS studies. We grouped the
farms and indicated the possible pathways of achieving a given state of
farm sustainability. The larger farms with extended families sent
member/s to earn non-farm income and farmed for higher productivity
and profitability, and both farm income and remittance enhanced their
savings. These farms chose the ‘cash’ pathway to sustainability (TN-2).
Another group of farms with smaller holding, relatively lesser farm
profit, lowered groundwater, and higher soil salinity achieved sustain-
ability by adopting a range of sustainable farming practices, planting
multipurpose trees on their farms, diversifying income, managing low
external inputs farming, and sending member/s to earn non-farm in-
come for improving living conditions. These farms pursued diversified,
integrated farming and migration to evolve as the highest sustainable
farms (TN-8). Another group of large-sized women-managed farms, with
smaller families, but poor soil fertility, concentrated on a few farm en-
terprises in the absence of family labour, kept diverse livestock, reduced
input cost by adopting sustainable farming practices, used remittance to
employ labours in farming, and improved gender outcomes in farming
(Saha et al., 2018). This group of feminized farms pursued crop-livestock
based sustainable farming supported by remittance (TN-10) and expe-
rienced relatively less economic stress, perhaps due to their smaller
family size. Another group of farms with larger families, lesser farm
profit, better soil fertility, excavated water harvesting structure and
tried to grow irrigation-efficient crops; they invested less in farming by
adopting sustainable farming practices, diversified farm income, and
sent member/s of the family outside to earn non-farm income. However,
 P. Dasgupta et
the women did not take part in farming in these extended families (TN-
11). Few other farms excavated/reformed water harvesting structures
(TN-15 & TN-16) and were in the process of transforming their farming
system.
Overall, we see four significant forces and their interactions defined
sustainability of IFS in the coastal region – landholding, soil fertility,
sustainable farm practices centring water harvesting structure, and
migration of male members sending back off-farm income. Larger
holdings have an overarching effect on farm resource management and
the size of the farmland’s water harvesting structure (Ambast, 2019). On
the other hand, poor soil fertility may drive farming to monocropping or
compel the farmers to adopt sustainable management practices (Altieri
et al., 2017), which is also linked to the water harvesting structure on
the farm. Soil fertility, along with water harvesting structure, critically
encourage diversification in the agroecosystem and farm economy.
Distress in farming and livelihoods or the need for capital formation led
to male outmigration. While on the one hand, remittance sent by mi-
grants supported the living conditions and women’s position in farming,
it also helped in the investment in agriculture either in the form of inputs
or as hired labour for ensuring high farm productivity and profitability
(Saha et al., 2018; Saha and Goswami, 2020). Recursive migration is a
historical process in Sundarbans and holds the sustainability of almost
all types of IFS. However, the trend of outmigration from Sundarbans
increased unprecedentedly after the Cyclonic storm Aila in 2009 (Mistri
and Das, 2020), featured in almost all farm types with varying degrees.
Fig. 8 provides a conceptual diagram showing the pathways of sus-
tainability in the integrated farming systems of Sundarbans.
Finally, we see that several farms’ sustaining through productive
farming and non-farm income’ (type 2) could achieve higher Secon
without any trade-off in the Secol and Ssoc. Several farms from farm types
2, ‘bio-diverse farm supplemented with off-farm income’ (type 8), and
‘water-efficient farms supplemented with off-farm income’ (type 11)
enhanced Secol without any trade-off in the Secon and Ssoc. While the
larger integrated farms enjoyed the advantage of larger size, which is
often associated with farm resources and productive farming (and in-
vestment of off-farm income), the significantly smaller farms excavated
larger ponds and started diversifying their farming (Dile et al., 2013).
We suggest further research on these positively deviant farms for finding
the potential for sustainable intensification in the IFS (Henriksson et al.,
2018).
5. Conclusions
Sundarbans region has historically thrived against climatic and
biophysical constraints and sustained the farming and livelihoods
through incessant adaptations by its inhabitants. Integration of farm
resources is a means of such adaptations in farming, which is widely
found in the farms of the Sundarbans region. The assessment of the
sustainability of IFS reported in this paper is to be understood in that
context only where fragile natural resources and extra-local factors
continuously challenge farm sustainability, and different farm families
respond to them differently by altering resource use on their farm and
diversifying their livelihoods. The sustainability outcomes captured in
the assessment are mostly the results of interaction among the climatic
and biophysical conditions, ownership and management of farm re-
sources, and the household’s decision to earn outside agriculture and its
utilization back home.
The integrated farms of coastal West Bengal were sustainable socially
but least sustainable economically due to some farms’ non-commercial
nature and inadequate market integration opportunities. However, a
proportion of the farms achieved higher economic sustainability without
conceding other dimensions of sustainability. These farms are to be
taken up for analysis, refinement and scaling up in the region. The
highly sustainable farms ensured capture and efficient use of harvested
sweet water, generated biomass, and improved soil-health management
through resource recycling, which – along with remittance earned by
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Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3 (2021)
migrants – resulted in better productivity and profitability, savings and
improvement of living conditions. The farms of differential sustain-
ability values were shaped by farm size, soil fertility, the farm’s eco-
nomic performance, and non-farm income gained through migration.
However, the pathways to sustainability were different for different
groups of farms. Some larger farms enhanced sustainability by focusing
on cash income from productive farming and remittances (TN-2); the
other small farms opted for sustainable, diversified farming and earning
remittance (TN-8). The women-managed large farms of smaller families
went for crop-livestock based sustainable farming practices supple-
mented by remittance (TN-10). Other groups focused more on water
harvesting, growing irrigation-efficient crops, and adopting diversified,
sustainable farming practices by hired labour (TN-11). Thus, we see
different pathways to sustainability pursued by different groups of farms
in the Sundarbans, and they suggest different policy perspectives for
agricultural research and extension. Non-farm income was an essential
element of farm sustainability that offset sub-optimal outcomes from
agriculture – both economic and ecological – and adds to the integrated
farms’ social sustainability, mainly because the absence of men
enhanced the gender-related outcomes and also improved the living
condition.
We suggest five clear research and policy recommendations that
streams out of this study – (a) the study of structure and management of
highly sustainable farms under different farm types, in which no trade-
off among sustainability dimensions was found; (b) excavation and
expansion of water harvesting structure on the farm, along with training
on the science and management of pond-based agroecological trans-
formation; (c) the introduction of appropriate agronomic and soil health
management practices to overcome the biophysical constraints and cli-
matic challenges; (d) gender-sensitive farm planning and training to
increase the productivity of integrated farms vis-a-vis enhancing
women’s access to and control over farm resources; and (e) value
addition and market integration of integrated farms by the development
of producer collectives. However, many of these issues are interrelated,
even beyond agriculture as a sector, and needs multi-pronged in-
terventions beyond the micro-level (Sen, 2019). We abstain from those
recommendations since they do not connect directly to our present data.
We selected the farms from two geographical locations of the study
area, which might not cover the entire diversity of integrated farms in
the Sundarbans. Moreover, this region’s historical and biophysical fea-
tures challenges any grand narrative of farm sustainability in Sundar-
bans, especially when the data taken at a single point in time. This
region has seen recurrent, extreme climatic events which perturb the
stability of socio-ecological systems. The vast destruction of natural
resources changes the structure and management of a farm and funda-
mentally changes the farm family’s livelihood pattern. Hence, the study
outcomes should be appreciated within this unique context of the re-
gion. However, since the last such perturbation (cyclonic storm Aila in
2009) happened in the region siX years before data collection, we could
expect that most of the farms could bounce back to their previous
structure.
By the time this article was being written, another super-cyclone
(Amphan) hit these areas on 20 May 2020. This disaster devastated
the region’s natural resources when migrant labours from different parts
of India were returning to Sundarbans due to the government-declared
lockdown to prevent the outbreak of Covid-19. These events will be
another historical inflexion in the sustainability of integrated farms
since it has simultaneously changed the natural resource base and the
remittance-supported pathways to achieve farm sustainability, apart
from destabilizing the local non-farm economy.
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to the farm owners and community-based
organizations in the study locations. Science for Equity, Empowerment
and Development Division (SEED) of the Department of Science and
 P. Dasgupta et
Technology, Government of India supported a part of the study by
providing financial support to the fieldwork under the project titled
‘Improved Quality of Rural Life through Scientific Management of Natural
Resources’ (D.O. No. SSD/SCSP/036/2011).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.crsust.2021.100089.
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