अमूर्त

Integrated Farming System - An Holistic Approach: A Review

Manjunatha SB, Shivmurthy D, Sunil A Satyareddi, Nagaraj MV and Basavesha KN

There are 115 million operational holdings in the country and about 80 % are marginal and small farmers. To fulfill the basic needs of house hold including food (cereal, pulses, oilseeds, milk, fruit, honey, meat, etc.), feed, fodder, fiber, etc. warrant an attention about Integrated Farming System (IFS). Undoubtedly, majority of the farmers are doing farming since long back but their main focus was individual components but not in a integrated manner. At the ICAR and State Agricultural Universities level, lot of efforts have been made aiming at increasing the productivity of different components of farming system like crop, dairy, livestock, poultry, piggery, goat keeping, duckery, apiculture, sericulture, horticulture, mushroom cultivation etc. individually but lacking in their integration by following farming system approach. The integration is made in such a way that product of one component should be the input for other enterprises with high degree of complimentary effects on each other. The preliminary research investigations advocated the benefits of productivity improvement by 30-50% depending upon the number and kind of enterprises and their management. The information on farming system in a systematic way is presented here. The methodology is explained keeping in mind the work done so far to realize better productivity, profitability and sustainable production systems that would help to solve the fuel, feed and energy crisis, create more employment avenues, ensure regular income and encourage agricultural oriented industry.