Vol. 12, Special Issue 8 (2023)

Agricultural food systems have been impacted critically in this current era of climate change. It has significant implications to food and nutritional security, technological advancements and also socioeconomic impact. Overall, agriculture relies on the cooperation of 500 million farmers and provides an income source for nearly two billion people globally. Food and nutritional security of the developing nations is primarily based on smallholder agriculture. In the Indian scenario, small holder agriculture is the major source of livelihood for poor farm families. It is also the main source for sustained food consumption. Farmers generally lack information about advanced production technologies and market support opportunities. This is particularly true in case of high-value crops varieties with growing market demands. Farm families generally tend to rely on subsistence crops and perhaps a few cash crops that are traditionally grown in the region. Small holder farm families are generally reluctant to judiciously adopt expensive inputs as they usually do not have the necessary capital reserve. Farmers in India are usually prone to extremes of climate change variations for crop production and hence are not keen to gain capital access on credit subject to their meagre collateral. Uncertainty in market demand and supply usually forces the farmers to ensure minimum food supply for consumption before production on commercial basis. Contract farming is an efficient alternative to overcome these constraints. Hence, in view of interest of policymakers and researchers this study for assessment of contract farming in vegetables, was undertaken especially in this Tarai region of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Contract farming was undertaken with a view to gain sustainable agricultural production by judiciously adopting semi-commercial and commercial systems. Besides, this undertakings main objective was to provide reliable solutions to participating farmers to meet the standards as inked under the contract. Contract farming ensured safe high-quality food for distributors, food processors and consumers with stabilized income security at low risk. Structured collaboration with government and allied sectors, NGOs and other stakeholders helped to build trust and transparency mechanisms besides opening new vistas for processing at local level. Income generation and setting up investments in processing. This capital investment under processing was one of the primary sources for employment generation and further market capitalization of processed products. The major constraints identified under this investigation that posed a threat to adoption contractual farming include contract breach and power struggle between different stakeholders, side selling by farmers and delayed payments.