Agriculture is the back bone of Indian economy. Farmers work very hard to increase the production of crops to feed the growing population. Even though they work hard, they get less for their produce after spending all the inputs (seeds, livestock breeds, fertilizers, pesticides, energy, feed, labor, etc.). Growing crops alone does not make more profit for the farmer likewise rearing animals without crop. Integrating various farm enterprises (crop +livestock) will improve the farmer’s livelihood. Integrating various enterprises in turn improves the usage of farm waste effectively and reduces the usage of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides which cause harm to ecosystem. Integrated Farming System (IFS) is the commonly used term to explain the integrated farming approach compared to monocropping. It integrates crop and livestock or crop + livestock + fish or Crop + fish + mushroom + ducks and sometimes known as integrated biosystems. It is an inter-related approach where waste from one component is used as an input for another component. This reduces input cost and improves income. It utilizes waste as a resource/input which reduces input cost and ensures overall increase in overall productivity of the farm.
IFS, Productivity, Waste utilization, off farm inputs
