Comparative analysis of maize cultivation practices in the subtropics of the Jammu region and Punjab, India

Introduction

Maize (Zea mays L.) is an important cereal crop cultivated in many developed and developing countries. It is the most widely grown cereal crop globally and, in India, can be cultivated in the kharif, rabi and zaid seasons. Maize is used as food, feed and fodder and also has significant industrial value, making it a potential crop for raising farmers’ income (Koli et al., 2022). Global maize production has expanded rapidly over recent decades, propelled by rising demand and by a combination of technological advances, yield increases and area expansion (Shekhar and Singh, 2021). In 2024, about 1,214 million tonnes (MT) of maize were produced worldwide from roughly 205 million hectares (Mha), at an average productivity of about 5.9 t ha^-¹ (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2025). Global maize productivity varies considerably across regions, ranging from less than 2 t ha^-¹ in many rainfed production systems of developing countries to more than 10 t ha^-¹ in highly mechanized production systems, reflecting differences in genotype, environment, resource availability and crop management practices. In India, maize is the third most important cereal crop after rice and wheat. National production reached a record 43.41 MT in 2024–25 from about 10.7 Mha, giving an average productivity of roughly 4 t ha^-¹, compared with 31.5 MT from 10.2 Mha in 2021-22 (Indian Institute of Maize Research (IIMR), 2022; Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), 2025; Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), 2025), Indian yields therefore remain well below the world average, indicating a substantial and persistent yield gap. The majority of the people of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (UT of J&K) are engaged in subsistence agriculture of diverse kinds on terraced slopes (Sharma et al., 2023). Maize is one of the major field crops cultivated in almost all districts of Jammu & Kashmir, covering about 288.20 thousand hectares with an annual production of approximately 0.59 MT (Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Jammu & Kashmir, 2024). It is often grown on terraced fields with minimal mechanization and traditional knowledge being passed down through generations (Dan et al., 2020). Maize serves dual purposes here, as a food staple and as animal feed, especially during harsh winters.

Although Punjab is popularly known as the “Granary of India” for its wheat and rice production, it is also an important maize-growing state. Maize is grown mainly in the districts of Hoshiarpur, Rupnagar, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, Pathankot, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar (Mohali) and Jalandhar and is cultivated across the state, covering an area of approximately 86.1 thousand hectares with a production of about 383 thousand metric tonnes (Directorate of Statistics, Punjab, 2025). Maize occupies an important place in the modern agro-industrial value chain, serving the food, feed, starch, poultry and biofuel industries, and demand from these sectors has been a major driver of the recent expansion in Indian maize production (Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), 2025). The development of improved maize hybrids and modern production technologies has led to considerable variation in cultivation practices across regions, making comparative studies essential for identifying opportunities to improve productivity and sustainability.

Previous research on maize technology adoption has followed three broad lines of enquiry and reading them together indicates where the present study fits. First, adoption studies in India and South Asia consistently report that the recommended package of practices is only partially followed. Sharma et al. (2020) found that the adoption of recommended seed rates and fertilizer doses in subtropical India was uneven and closely associated with extension contact, while Ali et al. (2016) showed that access to improved water-lifting technology raised crop productivity and household income. These studies establish that adoption is partial, but each describes a single region and therefore cannot separate what is attributable to farmer behaviour from what is attributable to the agro-ecological and institutional context in which farmers operate. Second, efficiency studies quantify what is lost when adoption is incomplete. Akhtar et al. (2023) reported mean technical, allocative and economic efficiencies of 0.89, 0.66 and 0.59 respectively among hybrid maize growers and identified extension contact, credit access and distance from market as significant determinants, while Belete (2020) and Adnan et al. (2021) reached broadly similar conclusions for maize systems in Ethiopia and Bangladesh. These studies agree that allocative rather than technical inefficiency is usually the binding constraint, which implies that the balance of inputs and not merely their quantity, deserves attention - a point rarely examined in adoption surveys. Third, agronomic and systems research demonstrates what improved management can deliver: conservation agriculture combined with precision nitrogen and water management has been shown to raise maize yields, profitability and energy efficiency in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (Jat M. L. et al., 2020; Jat H. S. et al., 2020; Kumar et al., 2024) and Shahbaz et al. (2022) linked climate-adaptation practices to higher technical efficiency and lower fertilizer use in a wheat-maize zone. Such evidence largely comes from research-managed or on-farm trials and the extent to which the gains are realised on smallholder fields depends on the adoption levels that survey research measures.

Two gaps follow from this literature. First, adoption, efficiency and agronomic evidence are seldom brought together for the same crop within a single design. Second and more directly relevant here, existing Indian studies examine regions in isolation, so that a low adoption figure cannot be interpreted against a comparable benchmark. A paired comparison between the subtropics of the Jammu region and Punjab is informative precisely because the two areas grow the same crop under broadly similar recommended packages and face similar output prices, yet differ sharply in irrigation assurance, holding size, mechanization and extension density. Differences observed between them therefore isolate the contribution of the production environment and institutional support rather than of the crop or of prices, which is what makes the comparison worth making. Comparative field evidence of this kind is scarce for these two agro-ecologies and the present study was designed to supply it.

From a sustainable food systems perspective, maize cultivation plays a crucial role in ensuring food, feed and livelihood security in both resource-intensive and resource-constrained agro-ecological regions. Sustainability challenges such as imbalanced fertilizer use, inefficient irrigation, low mechanization and limited access to extension services can, however, affect long-term productivity and environmental health, so that understanding regional differences in maize production practices is essential for promoting environmentally sound, economically viable and socially inclusive food systems. Framed within the technology-adoption and sustainable-intensification perspectives and drawing on the Genotype × Environment × Management (G × E × M) framework, the present study was undertaken to compare the maize cultivation practices adopted by farmers in the two regions, to identify regional differences in the adoption of recommended production technologies and to evaluate variations in input use, crop management practices and productivity, thereby generating evidence that may support region-specific extension strategies, resource-use efficiency and policy interventions for sustainable maize production.

Materials and methods

A descriptive research design was employed, using a multistage sampling technique that combined purposive and random selection at successive stages (Figure 1). Districts and blocks were selected purposively on the basis of the area under maize, whereas villages and respondents were selected through simple random sampling. Purposive selection at the district and block stage was appropriate to the objectives of the study, which concern the adoption of recommended maize production technology rather than the incidence of maize cultivation as such: concentrating the sample where maize is a principal kharif crop ensures that respondents have sustained experience of the practices under study, that the recommended package is locally relevant and that the two regions are compared at their respective production frontiers rather than at their margins. The associated trade-off is acknowledged. Because low-intensity maize-growing areas were excluded by design, the adoption levels reported here are likely to lie at or above the regional averages and the estimates should be read as a comparison of leading maize tracts rather than as Union Territory- or state-level parameters. The direction of this selection bias is, however, similar in both regions, so the inter-regional contrasts that form the basis of the analysis are unlikely to be an artefact of the sampling frame.

From the UT of J&K, two districts of the Jammu subtropics with the maximum area under maize were selected purposively and two districts were similarly selected from the subtropics of Punjab, giving four districts in all (Figure 2). Three blocks were then selected purposively from each district on the same criterion, yielding twelve blocks. A list of maize-growing villages was prepared for each selected block with the help of extension personnel of the Department of Agriculture and two villages were selected at random from each list, giving a total of twenty-four villages. Finally, a list of maize growers was prepared for each selected village and fifteen respondents were drawn at random, giving 360 respondents (180 from each region).

Data were collected through semi-structured personal interviews conducted at community centres, farmers’ fields and respondents’ homes with responses recorded on the spot. The interview schedule was developed based on the recommended package of practices for maize issued by the respective State Agricultural University and the Department of Agriculture and covered farm profile, hybrid or variety grown, seed rate, irrigation, manure and fertilizer use, weed, insect-pest and disease management and grain and stover yield and sale price. Content validity was established through review by a panel of experts in agricultural extension and agronomy. The interview schedule was pre-tested on 30 non-sampled maize growers to identify and rectify ambiguities before the final survey and the internal consistency of the scale items was found to be acceptable (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.82). The sample of 360 respondents was considered adequate for regional comparison, satisfying Yamane’s (1967) sample size formula at the 95% confidence level and exceeding the minimum sample size generally recommended for the statistical analyses employed in the study.

The data were analysed using descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means and standard errors), independent-samples t-tests for continuous variables (area, yield and sale price) and Z-tests for the difference between two proportions to compare the extent of adoption of recommended practices between the two regions. For the Z-test, the normal approximation was considered appropriate because the sample size was sufficiently large (180 respondents in each region) and the conditions for applying the test were satisfied for the full-sample comparisons. Comparisons based on the plant-protection sub-samples, in which the number of users of a particular chemical was small, are reported for completeness but interpreted with caution. All analyses were performed using SPSS version 26.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) and Microsoft Excel 2019, with statistical significance assessed at the 1 and 5 per cent levels.

Study area

The study area is described below for both regions in a common sequence - geographic location, climate, soil characteristics, cropping pattern, irrigation and agricultural importance - to facilitate direct comparison. Where more recent official figures were not available at the time of writing, the latest published sources have been used and are cited accordingly. Geographically, the UT of J&K is situated in the north-western Himalayan region (approximately 32° 17′ to 37° 05′ N latitude and 72° 31′ to 80° 20′ E longitude) and falls under agro-climatic zone-I. It comprises three distinct altitudinal zones: the subtropical Jammu region (300–800 m above mean sea level), the intermediate or semi-temperate mid-hills (800-1,500 m) and the temperate zone (1,500-2,500 m), the first of these constitutes the study area. Climatically, the subtropical Jammu region experiences a mean annual rainfall of about 1,000-1,200 mm, most of it received from the south-west monsoon, with summer temperatures of 25-40 °C. Soils are predominantly alluvial and sandy loam in the plains and in the kandi (piedmont) belt, the latter being characterised by coarse-textured, well-drained profiles of low water-holding capacity. The cropping pattern is dominated by maize-wheat in the kandi and mid-hill tracts and by rice-wheat in the irrigated plains, maize being grown mainly during kharif. Irrigation is limited: the region has a net sown area of 0.82 Mha and a cropping intensity of 146 per cent and only 43.3 per cent of the net sown area is irrigated (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW), 2019), so that maize in the kandi belt is grown largely on rainfall and residual soil moisture. Agriculturally, holdings are small and fragmented, the average operational holding in the UT being 0.59 ha with the overwhelming majority of holdings below 1 ha (Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), 2019), the Agriculture Census 2015–16 remains the most recent enumeration published for the Union Territory. Within this setting maize functions simultaneously as a food staple, a fodder source and a modest cash crop for smallholder households.

Punjab, by contrast, lies approximately between 29° 30′ and 32° 32′ N latitude and 73° 55′ and 76° 50′ E longitude and falls within agro-climatic zone-VI, known as the “Trans-Gangetic Plains Region”. Most of the state consists of fertile plains, though the south-eastern part features semi-arid and desert-like terrain, while the north-eastern area includes a stretch of undulating hills at the base of the Himalayas, within which the surveyed districts lie. Climatically, the state receives about 400–700 mm of annual rainfall, appreciably less than the Jammu subtropics, with hot summers and cool winters. Soils are dominated by fertile alluvium of loam to sandy-loam texture. The cropping pattern is dominated by rice-wheat, maize being grown mainly in the foothill and kandi districts as a kharif alternative to rice. Irrigation is near-universal: the state is traversed by the Ravi, Beas, Sutlej and Ghaggar rivers, benefits from an extensive canal network supplemented by tubewells and 96.2 per cent of the agricultural land is irrigated. Agriculturally, the net sown area is 4.02 Mha, constituting about 95 per cent of the cultivable land and the cropping intensity stands at 191 per cent, indicating that agricultural land is cropped nearly twice each year through multiple cropping (Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), 2023), farm size, mechanization levels and input use are substantially higher than in the subtropics of the Jammu region.

These contrasting agro-ecological characteristics are directly relevant to the comparative objectives of the study. The two study areas grow the same crop under broadly similar recommended packages and face similar output prices, but differ systematically in rainfall, soil water-holding capacity, irrigation assurance, holding size and mechanization. The Jammu subtropics represent a largely rainfed, small-holding, low-input system in which maize is primarily a subsistence and fodder crop, whereas the Punjab subtropics represent an irrigated, larger-holding, input-intensive system in which maize is grown commercially for the feed and starch industries. Comparing adoption and productivity across these two settings therefore allows the influence of the production environment and institutional support to be distinguished from that of the crop itself and helps to locate where the scope for improving resource-use efficiency lies in each region.

Results and discussion

Farmers in the study area cultivated both high-yielding hybrids and traditional (non-descript) maize varieties, as shown in Table 1, Figure 3. The clearest pattern is one of divergent hybrid portfolios rather than of differing hybrid uptake as such. Jammu growers concentrated on a small number of hybrids, with Double de Kalb accounting for the largest share, followed by Kanchan (K-517) and Dekalb-9144, whereas Punjab growers distributed their choice across a wider set of hybrids led by Adv-9293 and P-3396. Only Dekalb-9144 was adopted to an equal extent in both regions and P-1899 was preferred in both for its higher economic returns, although the inter-regional difference was not statistically significant. Non-descript varieties persisted in the Jammu region at roughly twice the level recorded in Punjab, though this difference was likewise non-significant. Two features of the pattern merit attention. First, the hybrids most widely grown in Jammu were reported by respondents to be distributed by the Department of Agriculture at subsidized rates, which suggests that public supply channels shape varietal choice where private input markets are thin, although this was not independently verified in the present study. Second, the greater varietal diversity observed in Punjab is consistent with a more developed private seed market and with the innovation attributes of relative advantage and trialability identified by Rogers (2003). The practical implication is that varietal replacement in the Jammu region depends heavily on what the public system procures, so that the range and timeliness of that procurement is itself a determinant of productivity.

Table 1. Response of respondent farmers regarding adoption of maize hybrids during kharif 2023-24.

Values are expressed as Mean ± Standard Error (SE), ^**Significant at p<0.01, NS, Not Significant, Figures are percentages and rounded off to the nearest whole number, ^##hybrid.

Bold entries within the body of the table denote the names of parameters, hybrids and varieties (row and sub-row headings); bold typeface does not indicate statistical significance.

The extent of adoption of recommended production and protection practices differed sharply between the two regions, but not uniformly across inputs (Table 2, Figure 4). Adoption of the recommended seed rate and of recommended irrigation scheduling was markedly higher among Punjab growers, both differences being significant at the 1 per cent level, in the case of irrigation, adoption in the Jammu subtropics was almost negligible. This gap reflects infrastructure rather than awareness, since maize in the kandi belt is grown largely under rainfed conditions in which scheduled irrigation is not feasible and is chosen partly because it requires less water than competing crops.

Table 2. Adoption of seed rate, irrigation management, manure, herbicide, pesticide and disease management practices by the respondent farmers during kharif 2023-24.

Values are expressed as Mean ± Standard Error (SE), ^**Significant at p<0.01, NS, Not Significant, Figures are percentages and rounded off to the nearest whole number.

SC, Suspension Concentrate (if referring to pesticide formulation); WP, Wettable Powder; SG, Soluble Granule; EC, Emulsifiable Concentrate.

Sample sizes differ across the plant-protection sub-panels because each herbicide, pesticide and fungicide was analysed only for the subset of respondents who reported using that particular chemical, the seed-rate, irrigation and fertilizer rows are based on all 180 respondents per region.

Bold entries denote the names of parameters and recommended practices (row and sub-panel headings); bold typeface does not indicate statistical significance.

The fertilizer results reverse this direction and are, for that reason, among the more instructive findings of the study. A larger proportion of Jammu growers than of Punjab growers applied the recommended doses of urea, DAP and MOP, all three differences being significant at the 1 per cent level, whereas the recommended dose of farmyard manure was followed by substantially more growers in Punjab. Higher adherence to recommended chemical-fertilizer doses in the low-input region does not, however, indicate better nutrient management overall, because Jammu growers apply lower absolute quantities on much smaller holdings, it indicates rather that deviation from the recommendation in Punjab is predominantly upward. Read alongside the yield data, this suggests that the two regions face opposite nutrient-management problems: under-application relative to yield potential in the Jammu region and over-application relative to the recommendation in Punjab. Respondents’ contact with the Department of Agriculture and with input dealers is a plausible influence on these patterns, although the relationship was not formally tested in the present study.

Plant-protection practices, in contrast, showed no significant inter-regional differences. Adoption of the recommended doses of chlorantraniliprole, emamectin benzoate and cypermethrin was similar in the two regions, as was the use of mancozeb 75% WP for disease management and the differences in herbicide use - atrazine in both regions and tembotrione only in Punjab - were also non-significant. Manual weeding remained common in the Jammu region, where family labour is available for field operations, whereas greater reliance on herbicides in Punjab is consistent with the higher labour costs and larger operational scale reported for the state. These comparisons are based on the subsets of respondents who used each chemical and the small size of some subsets limits the statistical power of the corresponding tests.

From a sustainability viewpoint, the pattern across the three groups of inputs points to different priorities in the two regions: improving water access and nutrient adequacy in the Jammu subtropics and moderating and rebalancing fertilizer application in Punjab. Optimizing nutrient and water management along these lines can reduce unnecessary input costs, limit environmental losses and contribute to more sustainable maize-based production systems, particularly in input-intensive regions.

Grain and stover yields were substantially higher in Punjab than in the Jammu region, both differences being significant at the 1 per cent level (Table 3, Figure 5). Punjab growers harvested about 1.7 times the grain yield and about 1.7 times the stover yield recorded in the Jammu region and did so on holdings with more than three times the average area under maize. Sale prices, by contrast, were only marginally higher in Punjab for both grain and stover, the rate for maize produce has remained largely unchanged in both regions over the preceding two to three years, so that the regional income gap in maize is driven almost entirely by yield rather than by price realisation.

Table 3. Distribution of households on the basis of maize production and sale rate during kharif 2023-24.

Values are expressed as Mean ± Standard Error (SE), ^**Significant at p<0.01, q = quintal (100 kg).

These differences can be interpreted within the Genotype × Environment × Management (G × E × M) framework. Genotype effects are reflected in the divergent hybrid portfolios of the two regions, environmental effects in differences in agro-climatic conditions, rainfall patterns, irrigation availability and soil characteristics and management effects in variations in fertilizer application, irrigation practice, mechanization and access to extension services. The present study was not designed to quantify the individual contribution of these three components, but the combination of assured irrigation, line sowing, higher mechanization and intensive input use in Punjab is consistent with the higher grain and stover yields observed there. The implication for the two regions differs in kind and not merely in degree. In Punjab the priority is to protect existing yield levels while reducing the resource intensity with which they are achieved, whereas in the Jammu subtropics there is scope for sustainable intensification - improved irrigation access, quality seed, balanced nutrient management, line sowing and appropriate mechanization - that could raise yields appreciably from a low base without a proportionate increase in environmental footprint.

The present findings can be compared with earlier work along three lines: where they agree, where they diverge and what may explain the divergence. In terms of agreement, the higher adoption of recommended practices and the greater productivity observed in Punjab are consistent with earlier reports linking intensive input use, assured irrigation and mechanization to higher maize yields in the north-western plains, whereas the predominantly rainfed, low-input systems of the Jammu subtropics resemble those described for other Himalayan and kandi agro-ecosystems (Kumar, 2013; Sharma et al., 2020). The association between institutional contact and adoption observed here also accords with Akhtar et al. (2023), who identified extension visits and credit access as significant determinants of technical and economic efficiency among hybrid maize growers and with Ali et al. (2016), who reported productivity and income gains from improved water-lifting technology. The magnitude of the yield advantage of the intensively managed region is broadly of the same order as the gains reported for conservation agriculture with precision nitrogen and water management in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (H. S. Jat et al., 2020; Kumar et al., 2024).

Two results, however, depart from the pattern usually reported. First, adoption of the recommended doses of urea, DAP and MOP was higher in the low-input Jammu region than in input-intensive Punjab, which is the opposite of the direction implied by studies that treat adoption of recommended practices as increasing monotonically with resource endowment (Sharma et al., 2020). The most plausible explanation is that the recommendation functions as a ceiling in one region and as a floor in the other: where inputs are affordable and yields are high, growers tend to exceed the recommended dose in pursuit of additional yield, whereas where cash constraints bind, application converges on or falls below the recommended level. This interpretation is consistent with efficiency studies which find allocative, rather than technical, inefficiency to be the binding constraint in intensively farmed maize systems (Adnan et al., 2021; Belete, 2020; Akhtar et al., 2023) and with evidence that adaptation and precision-management practices can sustain yields at lower fertilizer rates (Shahbaz et al., 2022; Jat M. L. et al., 2020). Second, plant-protection practices showed no significant regional difference, despite large differences in mechanization and input intensity. This suggests that pesticide and fungicide use is driven more by prevailing pest pressure and by dealer-mediated advice, which operate similarly across the two regions, than by the institutional and infrastructural factors that govern seed, water and fertilizer decisions, it is also consistent with reports of broadly uniform chemical response to the spread of fall armyworm in South Asia (Lamsal et al., 2020) and with concerns raised about herbicide use under intensive cultivation in Punjab (Kaur et al., 2018; Abbas et al., 2018).

Taken together, these agreements and divergences indicate that a single, uniform extension message on the recommended package is unlikely to serve both regions well. In the Jammu subtropics the binding constraint is access - to assured irrigation, quality seed and adequate nutrients - and interventions there would raise yields and resource-use efficiency simultaneously. In Punjab the constraint is calibration: further yield gains from higher input use are likely to be small, while the cost and environmental penalties of over-application are not, so that the efficiency gain lies in moderating and balancing inputs rather than in increasing them. This asymmetry is precisely what a paired comparison reveals and what single-region studies cannot. It should be noted that the present study did not directly measure sustainability indicators such as nutrient-use efficiency, water productivity or environmental impact, the references to sustainability are therefore interpretive and the observed variation in fertilizer and irrigation use is best read as an indication of scope for improving resource-use efficiency rather than as a quantified sustainability outcome.

This study has some limitations that should be acknowledged. The findings are based on cross-sectional, self-reported survey data collected during a single crop season (kharif 2023-24) from four districts, which limits causal inference, does not capture inter-annual variability and restricts geographical generalizability, input use and adoption were reported by farmers and were not independently verified. Future research could build on these findings using multi-year and multi-location panel data, direct quantification of resource-use efficiency, water productivity and environmental footprints and multivariate techniques such as logistic or multiple regression to identify the determinants of adoption and productivity and to assess the climate resilience of maize-based systems in the two regions.

Conclusion

The study set out to compare maize cultivation practices in the subtropics of the Jammu region and Punjab, to identify regional differences in the adoption of recommended production technologies and to assess how input use and crop management relate to productivity. Against the first objective, the two regions differ less in whether hybrids are grown than in which hybrids are grown and through which channels they reach farmers, with public distribution shaping varietal choice in the Jammu region and a more diversified private market operating in Punjab. Against the second, adoption of recommended practices is not uniformly higher in the better-endowed region: Punjab leads decisively on seed rate and irrigation scheduling, where the constraint in Jammu is infrastructural rather than behavioural, whereas adherence to recommended chemical-fertilizer doses is higher in Jammu because deviation in Punjab is predominantly upward, plant-protection practices do not differ significantly between the two regions.

Against the third objective, the regional gap in both grain and stover yield is substantial and is not offset by price, since sale rates are broadly similar and have remained stable over recent years, the income difference in maize between the two regions is therefore essentially a productivity difference. For resource-use efficiency this implies two distinct agendas rather than one: closing an access gap in the Jammu subtropics, where improved irrigation, quality seed, balanced nutrition, line sowing and appropriate mechanization would raise yields from a low base and closing a calibration gap in Punjab, where moderating and rebalancing input use would preserve yields at lower cost and lower environmental risk. The contribution of the study to sustainable maize production lies in showing that these two agendas are complementary: pursued together and supported by strengthened extension services, they would narrow the regional productivity gap while reducing the resource intensity of the crop and they call for region-specific rather than common package recommendations.

Policy implications

The findings suggest that region-specific agricultural policies are needed to improve maize productivity and sustainability. Strengthening extension services, promoting balanced fertilizer use, improving access to mechanization and irrigation and encouraging location-specific technology dissemination can enhance productivity while optimizing resource use. These interventions may contribute to improved farmer livelihoods and long-term food security in both Jammu and Punjab.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Agnieszka Kuźniar, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland

Reviewed by: John R. Porter, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Naveena Saharan, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu, India

Sita Ram Ghimire, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Australia

Mohammad Vaheed, Banaras Hindu University, India