Impact of Integrated Farming System Approach on Doubling Farmers’ Income

Abstract

The role and factors associated with integrated farming system have been studied as a potential option to improve farmers’ income and ensure their sustainable livelihood in two districts of Tamil Nadu and four districts of Haryana. The contribution of different combinations of enterprises such as poultry, fishery, sheep and goat and horticulture; with crop and dairy as base enterprises have been analysed for their impact on farmers’ total income. The financial benefit of adopting different enterprise combinations analysed through partial budgeting has been found ranging from 7880/ha to 57530/ha. A highly significant (P<0.01) and significant (P<0.05) positive correlations were observed between total income and socio-economic factors like landholding, permanent asset creation, food security, nutritional security, employment generation and marketing behaviour; and education and livestock holding, respectively. A demand and profit oriented shift in preferences of farmers towards keeping farm forestry, mushroom culture, fishery, goat and poultry rearing from 1994 to 2014 in Haryana was noticed by the trend analysis. The heavy investment in the initial years and non-availability of labour were observed as the major constraints in adopting integrated farming system. The farmers can realize the doubling of their income within a contemplated period of five years by adding livestock in the farming system and reap the consequent social and ecological benefits.