Assessing sustainable livelihood security of integrated farming system practicing farmers in Karnataka: Focus on index development

Abstract

The agricultural sector is the backbone of Indian economy. Over 58.00 percent of rural Indians depending on agriculture for their livelihood and agriculture contributing 18.20 percent to the country’s gross domestic product (2024). In this study, a sustainable livelihood security index of integrated farming system module practicing farmers was developed using standardized procedures with seven dimensions i.e., food and nutritional security, economic security, physical security, social security, ecological and environmental security, resource use efficiency and psychological security. Consisting a total of 29 items. The validity of sustainable livelihood security index was validated using face and content validity. Consequently, reliability of the sustainable livelihood security index was also verified using Cronbach’s Alpha. Thus, the study found that the sustainable livelihood security index reliability was 0.931 (α).