Social Change and Development, Volume 5, November 2007, pages: 111-142 Conceptualising Sustainable Farm-livelihood Systems in the Era of Globalisation: A study of Rubber Integrated Farm Livelihood Systems in North East India P.K. Viswanathan a , Ganesh P. Shivakoti b a Associate Professor, Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad, India (Address effective from May 2007), E-mail: pkviswam@gmail.com b Professor, School of Environment Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. E-mail: ganesh@ait.ac.th Abstract Growing empirical evidences demonstrate that globalisation causes tremendous transformation even in the most traditional mountainous agrarian societies practising shifting cultivation. The new farming systems are considered as dynamic responses and coping mechanisms towards the nascent free trade regime, as the traditional swidden oriented farming systems have increasingly been proven to be less resilient, less efficient, less market responsive and economically unsustainable. Placed in the broad perspective of the emerging dynamic farming systems particularly in the mountainous regions of the world as a response to globalisation, the paper discusses the rationale, scope and the need for evolving a conceptual framework for cash crop based sustainable farm livelihood systems for the mountainous societies in particular. For empirical testing of the conceptual framework, the paper uses farm household level data from about 300 rubber smallholders in the three hill states of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura in North East India. In particular, the paper develops indicators for assessment of livelihood assets of the rubber smallholders following the sustainable farm livelihood systems approach. The paper highlights the importance of wider scaling up of rubber integrated farming systems in the agro-ecologically conducive areas in the NE region as a source of socio-economic advancement of the tribal communities and thereby achieving the positive externalities of integration of the region with the rest of the country. The paper also underscores the importance of strengthening the institutional contexts by which the tribal smallholders can have greater control over the property regimes as well as the entire farm production structure comprising prices, markets and value added processing activities. Crafting as well as strengthening of the institutional linkages is also imperative so as to empower and capacity building among the local communities and thereby achieve better outcomes of mobilisation and collective action and the sustenance of livelihoods of the rubber smallholders.