22 Acres (Range 5-50 acres). Average land holding size under organic farming is 7.9 acres (Range 1-37.5 acres), While Average land holding size under organic farming having wheat acreage is 5.25 acres (Range 1-25 acres). Average land holding size under chemical farming having wheat acreage is 17 acres (Range 3-35 acres). Many of the farmers have started organic farming on a very small scale i.e. just 1-2 acres. Most of the Organic farmers also grew vegetables, fruits, herbs, etc other than wheat that will cover most of the Family needs, one of the Farmer Sardar Balwant Singhji is growing Alovera and supplying it to a pharmaceutical farm. Research Findings and analysis In addition of limitations, there are several possible sources of error that could affect our results, even if we confine ourselves to the domain to which our data refer. We have relied substantially on farmers own reports of yields, purchase inputs, etc. Our matching of organic and chemical farms is at best a fairly one. 2. The present study pays more emphasis for calculations of actual paid-out costs (COST A1) and ignores COST B AND COST C. So the costs don’t give a complete picture. 1. Study limits itself to calculation of costs-revenues of the farm from wheat acreage and its by-product straw purely in monetay terms. This study has not quantified the other environment and long term benefits of Organic Farming accruing to the fertility and of the land , it soil and the life of farmer or the environmental damages caused to fertility of land , exploitation of excessive usage of natural resources like water and its contamination and its overall impact of health of farmer and his family. This precludes the possibility of making a Cost-Benefit Analysis and thus limits the scope of study to make predictions regarding sustainability of farming in the state of Punjab and support sustainability measures like encouraging organic farming. Limitations of the Study: Therefore, this group of farmers is best regarded as constituting a set of case rather than a randomly selected statistical sample. Because of the sampling procedure, our results should not be extrapolation to the population of all organic farmers in Punjab. As Organic Farmers in Punjab would approximately be around 0.5-0.8%, which is a very miniscule figure compared to farmers practicing Chemical Farming. So our main intention was to interview as many as organic farmers. Thus except for qualitative, there was no objective sampling procedure used in selecting these farms. Because there is no census or comprehensive listing of Organic Farms in Punjab and India, So in Punjab, a study that represents the entire organic farming population cannot be selected in accordance with a specific sampling procedure Procedure for Sample Selection and its Limitations: Description of Sample as per Landholding Size
Type of Farming practiced by Respondents
Organic Farming only
6 (30%)
ORGANIC AND CHEMICAL FARMING
12 (60%)
CHEMICAL FARMING ONLY
2 (10%)
Type of Farmer
No. of Respondents
BIG (more than 10 acres)
16 (80%)
MEDIUM (5-10 acres)
3 (15%)
SMALL (less than 5 acres)
1 (5%)