Farming on the cusp of change

Indian agriculture needs a complete makeover to become lucrative for small and marginal landholders, who constitute 85 per cent of the farmers. Piecemeal revamping, as has happened so far, has yielded perceptible results but the farm sector’s potential is yet to be fully realised. For that, agriculture centred on the present crops needs to give way to integrated farming systems involving a blend of crops, livestock, and other allied or subsidiary enterprises. Judiciously conceived combinations of diverse but compatible activities allow the byproducts or leftovers of one component to be used as the inputs for the other, thereby making optimal use of available resources, including the scarce land. 

Besides, they ensure regular year-round income for farmers with relatively low recurring costs.

Traditionally, farmers have found livestock, particularly cows and buffaloes, to be the ideal ally of crop farming. But now, the choice has widened greatly to include poultry, piggery, goat husbandry, fisheries, bee-keeping, sericulture (silkworm rearing), mushroom growing, floriculture, horticulture, agro-forestry, biogas production, and many others. However, the selection of enterprises has to be made prudently, taking into account agro-ecological conditions, locally available resources and inputs, and market demand for end-products. Care has to be taken to ensure that the chosen enterprises complement — and not compete with — one another.

Most of the woes of farmers — such as insufficient and uncertain income, under-employment, or disguised unemployment (owing to seasonality of farm operations), high wastage, and operational inefficiencies — can be taken care of through well-forged farming systems. Integration of two or more enterprises, moreover, offers numerous other advantages as well. For one, it enhances the overall profitability of the system as the produce of the allied sectors — be it milk, eggs, meat, fish, or honey — normally has high market value. Besides, it mitigates the risks involved in conventional farming. If crops fail due to some reason, the income from non-crop components would support the farm household. Moreover, it makes farming a full-time job, rather than a seasonal activity, to keep farmers gainfully occupied most of the time. More importantly, it yields marketable produce round the year for steady and relatively high income. Some tacit, but noteworthy, benefits of this form of sustainable and environment-friendly agriculture include improvement in soil health and fertility, on-farm recycling of wastes, higher input-use efficiency, and better nutrition for farm families.

A good deal of research and development is currently underway to evolve situation-specific models of integrated agriculture for different states, keeping in view their agro-ecological conditions. Various institutions of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) are collaborating in this effort. These include the Modipuram-based Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research (IIFSR) in Uttar Pradesh, the all-India coordinated research project on integrated farming systems, the all-India network programme on organic farming, and numerous agricultural universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (agriculture science centres).

They have already developed a large number of prototypes of the integrated farm systems for 26 states and Union Territories. Local farmers have been actively involved in this endeavour to ensure adoptability of the mooted farming models. According to the IIFSR, the focus is usually on producing food and feed for the farm households and their livestock and generating adequate surplus for cash income to meet their other needs.

The investment needed to put the new systems into practice varies from approximately Rs 4,000 to Rs 24,000 a hectare, averaging around Rs 11,500 a hectare. But it can raise farm income, on average, by 2.7 times in a span to two to three years. A countrywide impact assessment survey has shown that as many as 73 per cent of the farmers who opted to try out the integrated farming systems tend to persist with them. This reflects a high degree of satisfaction.

Little surprise, therefore, that the concept of interlinking different agricultural activities to make an integrated farming system has begun to catch on. Some state governments, convinced of the usefulness of the new approach, have started to promote it officially. States like Kerala and Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir have been allocating funds in their Budgets for this purpose since 2017. Kerala has put together over 7,000 situation-specific models of farming systems for promoting through village Panchayats. In Tamil Nadu, over 10,000 farmers in 34 districts are reported to have taken to the new form of agriculture. In Jammu and Kashmir, this movement has taken root in as many as 84 legislative constituencies. They are adopting the integrated systems formulated under the all-India research project on this subject. Taking a cue, the Union agriculture ministry has counselled all states to promote the integrated farming systems under the action plan for rainfed agriculture and the programmes sponsored by the National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture. Hopefully, the states would heed this sane advice for the good of their farmers who are craving for a better future.

surinder.sud@gmail.com