Designing sustainable agricultural production model: Balancing food, economy, and environmental outcomes in humid subtropics

Negative environmental outcomes and poor economic returns often questioned the sustainability of conventional agricultural production systems. Hence, a field experiment was conducted by involving two land configurations: flat-bed (FB) and raised bed and furrow (RBF) in main plots, and four cereal-legume integrations in sub-plots: maize-wheat, maize + black gram + soybean-wheat + chickpea, maize + cowpea + soybean-wheat + lentil, and maize + cowpea + soybean-wheat + mustard in three times replicated split-plot design to develop the sustainable production model for balancing productivity, economics and environmental outcomes. The raised bed and furrow demonstrated 5.5–6 % higher system productivity over the flatbed. Likewise, integrating cereals with legumes enhanced system productivity by 2–2.5 times over the maize-wheat system. Concerning environmental indicators, the raised bed and furrow system had significantly higher energy use efficiency (8.29 %) and energy productivity (1.54 kg MJ⁻¹) over a flatbed. Among the cereal-legume integrations, the maize + cowpea + soybean – wheat + mustard system registered the highest energy productivity and the lowest specific energy and demonstrated 2.26 times greater energy productivity and 41.35 % lower specific energy over the maize-wheat system. Cereal-legume integration reduces the carbon footprint by 2.5–3 times over the maize-wheat system. The maize + cowpea + soybean – wheat + mustard and maize + cowpea + soybean – wheat + lentil had ∼90.7 % higher eco-efficiency index (EEI) over the maize-wheat. Overall study inferred that the concurrent cultivation of cereals and legumes on raised beds and furrows is the most viable option for maximizing economic outputs and minimizing the environmental footprints in humid subtropics.