Research landscape of marginal and small farmers in India from 1975 to 2024: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

This paper attempted a bibliometric analysis of the literature on India’s marginal and smallfarmers from 1975 to 2024,highlighted key terms, keyword co-occurrence, trending topics, research theme evolution, and future research directionsfor this critical group. Nearly ninety percent of India’s agricultural households were marginal and small, playing a significantrole in the country’s agricultural framework. We used 309 research studies from the SCOPUS database for this purpose.Theliterature’s primary keywords included climate change, food security, sustainability, farmers’ income, contract farming,productivity, conservation agriculture, crop diversification, indebtedness, livelihood, institutional credit, farm size, farmincome, employment, and integrated farming systems. Co-occurrence analysis indicated that researchers highly emphasizedclimate change, smallholder farmers, adaptation, and climate variability. Nonetheless, areas such as food security, andmarginal and small farmers had adverse effects of climate change, and climate change mitigation strategies require furtherinvestigation to substantially improve the welfare of India’s marginal & small farmers.