Impact of Natural Farming on Sustainable Agricultural Practices and Livelihood Security in Andhra Pradesh
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25175/jrd/2026/v45/i1/173515Keywords:
Community Managed Natural Farming; sustainable agricultural practices; household livelihood security; quantile regression; inclusive rural development; Andhra Pradesh.Abstract
Sustainable agricultural programmes are increasingly promoted to reconcile environmental sustainability with household livelihood security. However, empirical evidence has largely evaluated natural farming through productivity, profitability, and ecological outcomes, providing limited understanding of whether these benefits translate into inclusive livelihood gains across heterogeneous farming households. This study examines the livelihood effects of participation in the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming programme, drawing on primary survey data from 1,786 agricultural households, comprising 1,140 CNF households and 646 conventional farming households. Household livelihood security is measured by the Monthly Per Capita Household Income, and its determinants are estimated using Ordinary Least Squares and Quantile Regression models while controlling for household, farm, institutional, and agroecological characteristics. The results indicate that participation in CNF is positively associated with household livelihood security. More importantly, the magnitude of this association declines systematically across the conditional income distribution, indicating that resource-constrained households derive substantially greater livelihood gains than relatively better-off farmers. Irrigation, institutional credit, education, and landholding further strengthen livelihood security, underscoring the complementary role of productive assets and institutional support. The findings demonstrate that the livelihood benefits of sustainable agricultural programmes are inherently heterogeneous rather than uniform across farming households, highlighting the importance of evaluating agroecological transition through its distributional livelihood effects rather than average programme effects alone. By providing distribution-sensitive evidence on the livelihood consequences of agroecological transition, the study extends the literature on sustainable agriculture and offers policy-relevant insights for designing agricultural programmes that are environmentally sustainable, economically viable, and socially inclusive.
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