The integrated farming system is an environmentally friendly and cost-effective approach to the sustainability of agri-food systems in the modern era of the changing climate: A comprehensive review

Abstract

The integrated farming system (IFS) is a holistic farming approach specially designed for small/marginal farmers to enhance the system productivity, profitability, and employment generation of their farm, ultimately ensuring their food and nutrition security for their livelihood. The mechanism of IFS offers various ecosystem services making farms environment-friendly, sustainable, and climate-resilient. IFS is characterized by the allocation of different agricultural components systematically in a single farm performing synergistically among themselves making the farm more productive, healthy, biodiversity enriched, and eco-friendly than simplified farms. Therefore, this review paper represents an extensive analysis of existing literature on IFS exploring its concept, components, and need, and emphasizing its potential for higher system productivity, profitability, and employment generation in a sustainable manner. Moreover, it develops a conceptualization of the relationship among different agricultural components in a single farm exploring its role in ecosystem services (reducing greenhouse gases, carbon sequestration, nutrient recycling, improving soil health, and biodiversity conservation).