Intensive agriculture during the green revolution encouraged the accelerated spread of area under monoculture. Although production increased manifold, on the other side, it resulted in the loss of agroecological diversity specific to each agrarian region, besides having a harmful impact on soil health and nutrient balance. The high input, high risk and fragile mono-crop-based agriculture became a norm in India, thus posing a serious threat to the natural resource base in the country. Serious implications of intensive agriculture with low diversification are frequently reported by scientists from across India. The impact on soil parameters is reported to be extremely adverse. The soil analysis of 2.30 crore soil samples carried out under the National Soil Health Card Scheme indicates that 80 % of the samples were moderate to severely deficient in nitrogen, 63% were low in organic carbon and 48% were deficient in phosphorus. Moreover, decreased agroecological biodiversity associated with the prevalent agricultural production systems has resulted in increased frequency and virulence of pest attacks.
Broadly speaking, changing climatic conditions and marketing issues can be counted as two major challenges agriculture faces at present. Taking these into account many research and policy initiatives were taken in hand in the past and are being taken at present. A landmark initiative by the govt of Jammu & Kashmir under “Holistic Development of Agriculture Sector’ is the outcome of thread bear discussion between multiple stakeholders inducing policymakers, researchers, agri-experts, industries and most importantly farmers about the problems faced by our farmers and possible interventions to overcome the challenges. The 5013 corer plan will hopefully change the agricultural landscape in terms of the conservation of natural resources and augmentation of income of farmers through good agricultural practices and of those interested in agribusiness and agri-trade through value addition and marketing interventions and much more. There are 29 priority projects under HADP and one among these is “Adoption and Promotion of Integrated Farming System(IFS)/Integrated Livelihood System(ILS)”.
In conventional agriculture, farmers concentrate mainly on agricultural crop production which is subjected to a high degree of uncertainty in income and employment for the farmers. Growing a single crop has other risks related to unforeseen events especially related to weather vagaries, the outbreak of diseases and pests, which are very common in mono-cropping systems and may seriously impact the production&quality of produce and costs involved in the cultivation. A judicious integration of agricultural enterprises suited to the specific ago-climatic and socioeconomic situation of the farmers is therefore essential for augmenting the income of farms and increasing the family labour employment. In the Integrated Farming System different crop components, interact among themselves and it takes into account the components of soil, water, crop, livestock and other resources, with the farm family at the center managing agricultural and related activities and even on-farm activities. Integration of agriculture, horticulture and animal components in the diversified farming systems offer a lot of other advantages, like improvement in soil health, fertility and productivity because of recycling of on-farm organic wastes, nutritional security due to round-the-year availability of nutritious food enriched with proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and vitamins. Besides this, we can maintain a comparatively clean environment because of the recycling of farm wastes including those received from animal activities. On-farm resource utilization also reduced dependency on external inputs and thus the production costs of components are reduced and farm income is increased. Regular income and employment from diverse agri- products make IFS more lucrative for farming families.
Horticulture-based integrated farming systems with livestock as a component are often found viable and quite sustainable, particularly in hill ecologies like the one we possess in the UT of Jammu & Kashmir. There are multiple success stories on IFS across India and in different parts of the UT of Jammu & Kashmir. Seventy-five thousand success stories documented by the Indian Council of Agriculture Research from different parts of the country include thousands on Integrated Farming, which shows that transformation of agriculture from risk to relief can be achieved through integration and diversification of farm enterprises. Integrated Farming is a very old practice followed by the farmers, but up-scaling them by adding some suitable components based on understanding & knowledge about resources available at a particular location or farm situation can help boost the existing production, cropping intensity and farm income. A farmer for instance possessing apples, rice/ maize, dairy/sheep or poultry can improve his farming by choosing the best varieties and breeds of respective crop components available for the situation. So in some cases, a complete diversification from mono-cropping may be needed and in others putting some science into the existing components and adding a few updated and compatible components can do the needful.
In a study at Krishi Vigyan Kendra (Farm Science Center)- Kulgam, SKUAST-Kashmir, shifting from conventional mono-cropping to integrated farming system (IFS) with horticulture, agriculture and livestock as components resulted in around 6 fold increase in income over conventional field crop based cropping system in the assessment made after four years of establishment of one hectare IFS model. Farmers have also benefited from this IFS model and a good number of them are replicating suitable components at their farms and it is helping them. So developing Integrated Farming System Models in farmers’ participatory mode, which are lucrative and better suited to a given agro-climatic and socioeconomic environment is a single solution to multiple problems agriculture faces at present. The IFS models, therefore, need to be standardized both under irrigated and rainfed conditions and popularized in the relevant ecologies and socioeconomic setup. The action plan under the HADP project “ Adoption and Promotion of Integrated Farming System(IFS)/Integrated Livelihood System(ILS)” will hopefully pave the way for harnessing the benefits of IFS at the grassroots level.
The author is the Chief Scientist, Agronomy, MRCFC-SKUAST(K) and can be reached at dr***************@***il.com