Sustainable agriculture and provisioning ecosystem services in the Urgam Valley, Central Himalayas: patterns, productivity, and economic insights

Agriculture is a vital ecosystem service on which societies rely to manage essential resources. In Uttarakhand, more than 70% of the population depends on subsistence farming, which results in loss of biodiversity and abandonment of traditional farming practices. The primary objective of the current study is to analyze the patterns, productivity, and economic characteristics of sustainable agriculture in the Urgam Valley, focusing on the ecosystem services it provides. Comprehensive enumeration and random stratified sampling were performed over five village clusters in the Urgam Valley, encompassing more than 70% of the population. Crop productivity was evaluated with the Quadrate method (1.0 m x 1.0 m plots) with five replications over two successive years. Economic evaluations encompassed human and animal labor expenses, market pricing for inputs (seeds, manure), and agricultural yields. The Harvest Index (HI) was computed to assess the efficiency of grain production in relation to overall biological yield. Urgam had the best production for major crops, including potatoes (2363.125 kg/ha), wheat (1170 kg/ha), and finger millet (558.125 kg/ha). In contrast, Bharki recorded the lowest crop yields for barley (414.375 kg/ha) and mustard (313.75 kg/ha). The highest HI values were recorded for Barnyard Millet in Bharki (46.95%) and Finger Millet (48.68%), signifying elevated resource conversion efficiency. The lowest HI values for Amaranthus were observed in Urgam (28.56%), indicating potential for efficiency enhancements. Kidney beans exhibited the highest output-input ratio of 3.95, illustrating their worth as a cash crop despite the highly laborious methods involved. The cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of agriculture in the Urgam Valley depicts an over-dependence on human and animal labor, which forms the bulk of input costs. The study also notes several policy recommendations for adopting sustainable agriculture in the Urgam Valley, such as enhancing soil health, assisting local farmers in growing Indigenous crops, applying climate-smart agriculture approaches, and combining Indigenous knowledge and new technologies to help the farmers cope with subsistence and commercial farming.