Lecture 11.ppt
- 1. Lecture 11 SCOPE AND ADVANTAGES OF INTEGRATED FARMING SYSTEM
- 2. Agricultural development has undergone profound changes during the last two centuries. In western countries, machine power replaced animal power, fertilizers replaced organic manures. Dominance of fertilization, herbigation were noticed. India, during the past four decades, crop improvement, improved production technologies, crop protection technologies were introduced. All these development activities were confined to agriculturally intensive districts of our country. The improved technologies pose problems like • High cost of inputs • Fluctuation in market price of farm produce which does not commensurate with high cost of cultivation • Environmental pollution Eg: Nitrate accumulation in Indus river. • Soil degradation due to depletion of major secondary and micronutrients • Low level of government support by way of giving subsidy to the farming community. SCOPE
- 3. Technologies developed for individual crop became economically not viable and sustainable. Hence the farmer has to link two or more allied enterprises to enhance or improve his income. In this context farming system play a vital role. Drylands which constitute 99 million hectare and dryland farmers who are mostly marginal and small farmers (70% of farmer) face many problems. • Due to uncertain rainfall the yield and income from the crop is uncertain • The farm labourers are underemployed as the crop season is confined to four months only. • Natural resource degradation i.e. soil and nutrient loss due to water and wind erosion. Under such situations the INTEGRATED FARMING SYSTEM approach forms the only solution to the poor marginal and small farmers of India.
- 4. Advantages of Integrated Farming System a. Productivity IFS provides opportunity to increase economic yield per unit area per unit time by virtue of intensification of crop and allied enterprises. Time concept by crop intensification and space concept by building up of vertical dimension through crops and allied enterprises are the ways to increase productivity. b. Profitability The system as a whole provides opportunity to make use of the produce / waste material of one component as input on another component at least cost. By reduction of cost of production of component, profitability per rupee invested are being enhanced. Interference of middleman in most of the inputs used could be eliminated and there by benefit - cost ratio (BCR) is increased.
- 5. c. Potentiality / Sustainability Produce more and more within the land area available to meet the requirement of additional population recorded at 2.2% every year huge quantum of inorganic fertilizers, inorganic pesticides, fungicides, herbicides are dumped. There is every likel-ihood of soil & environment becoming polluted. In IFS organic supplementation through effective utilization of by- products of linked components as manures is possible and thus it will certainly provide an opportunity to sustain the potentiality of the production base viz., soil for much longer periods. d. Balanced food In IFS, components of varied nature are linked enabling to produce different sources of nutrition viz., protein, carbohydrate, fat, minerals, and vitamins from the same unit area. Provide an opportunity to solve the malnutrition problem that exists in the diet of the Indians
- 6. e. Pollution free environment In the process of production in the crop based activity, some of the organics are left as waste material and such materials when ignored as such will pollute the environment on decomposition. Application of huge quantity of fertilizer, pesticide, fungicide and herbicide pollute the soil, water and environment to an alarming level. In the case of IFS, waste materials are effectively utilized by linking appropriate components and thus utilizing the by-products as organic manures. Adopting bio control measures will help in preventing pollution of soil, water and atmosphere. In areas where piggery is a major activity, dumping of pig dung gives out huge quantity of unwanted gas and pollutes the atmosphere in the longer run. In IFS, the pig dung is used in the biogas unit to produce bio energy for the utilization of lighting, lifting water from the underground source and for running incubation unit of the poultry farm. Thus, IFS absolutely helps in avoiding environmental pollution.
- 7. f. Recycling IFS establish its stability due to effective recycling of produces/waste materials of any one of the component as input on the other component linked in the programme. Way of recycling their own material at the farm level, the farmer could be able to reduce the cost of production which enables ultimately to increase the net income of the farm as a whole. Helps in reducing the environmental pollution expected out of decomposition of organic residues of the farm activity. g. Money round the year Unlike conventional crop activity where the money is expected only at the time of disposal of the economic produce received after five to fifteen months depending upon the duration of the crop IFS provides flow of money to the farmer round the year by way of disposal of eggs, milk, edible mushroom, honey, cocoons of silkworm
- 8. h. Adoption of new technology Most of the big farmers are fully aware of the impact of new technologies included in the package. More than 80 per cent of the farmers who have been grouped under small and marginal categories are not able to execute the advanced technology proposed for want of money. IFS farmers, because of the linkage of Dairy / Mushroom / Sericulture / Fruit crops / Vegetables crops / Flower cultivation, money revolves round the year by sale of produce from these components at weekly / fortnightly interval. Availability of cash round the year gives a sort of inducement to the small and marginal farmers to go for the adoption of technologies Fertilizer application, pesticide and herbicide application given in the package which otherwise is not possible under conventional farming due to paucity of funds.
- 9. i. Solve energy crisis It is expected that the entire world is going to suffer for want of fossil fuel from 2030 AD. Becomes inevitable to identify an alternative source to solve our energy crisis within a span of 10 to 15 years. In IFS, by way of effective recycling techniques the organic wastes available in the system can be utilized to generate biogas. Though this may not be a source for complete supplementation, at least to certain extent the energy crisis anticipated can be solved. j. Solve fodder crisis In IFS, each and every piece of land is effectively utilized. Growing of perennial fodder trees in the borders and water courses is a recommended practice in IFS. Helps in supplementing legume fodder and also enriches soil nutrient by fixing the atmospheric nitrogen. In the cropped land also IFS envisages intensification of cropping by including legume fodder like cowpea either as second tier or as third tier in the system. These practices will certainly relieve the crisis of non-availability of quality fodder to the animal component linked.
- 10. k. Solve fuel and timber crisis The national demand of fuel wood in 2020 AD is 400 million m3, where as the current production is only 100 million m3. Requirement of industrial wood in 2020 AD is 64.4 million m3 and the current production level is 20 million m3. The present level of production should be increased to four folds in case of fuel wood and 3 folds in industrial wood. This could be possible to certain extent by afforestation programme in the shrub jungles and sparse forest areas. In IFS by linking agro-forestry appropriately, the production level of fuel wood and industrial wood can be enhanced without detrimental effect on crop activity in the field level.
- 11. l. Avoid degradation of forests There is a vast gap between the demand and production level as far as fuel wood and timber are concerned. This will naturally induce the users to encroach on the forest area nearby illegally to bridge the gap. Right now our forest area is less (22%) than the prescribed norms (33%), to the geographical area available. When such encroachments are encouraged, there is every possibility of our forest area going to be a wasteland in the years to come. Even in the forest area available at present more than 2/3rd is sparse forest. The statistics on soil erosion indicates that every year 5374 million metric tones of built up soil is eroded in our country every year. By linking Agro-forestry in IFS, the degradation of forest area could be minimized to certain extent by supplementation of fuel and timber wood. By way of preserving the natural eco-system in the catchment areas, precious built up soil can also be preserved from erosion danger.
- 12. m. Employment Generation Combining crop enterprises with that of livestock to take advantage of complementary and supplementary relationships between them, would increase the labour requirements tremendously and can help in solving the problem of underemployment to a great extent. IFS provide enough scope to employ family labour round the year. n. Improves literacy The farmers, who adopt IFS by combining different components like fishery, sericulture, mushroom cultivation, apiary, spawn production, dairy, poultry, agri-horticulture, agro-forestry, biogas production get expertise in each and every aspects of individual component on long range adoption. This will help the farmer to face any challenge in their activity.
- 13. o. Provides opportunity for agri-oriented industries When once the produces of different components linked in IFS are increased to commercial level and if there is glut in the market, leads to the development of allied industries for preserving the by- products. p. Increase input efficiency The IFS provides enough scope to use the inputs on different components very effectively. This again leads to increased benefit -cost ratio. q. Improves the standard of living of farmers When once provisions are made in the farm level to generate bio energy, produce edible mushroom, fruits, eggs, milk, honey, vegetable, etc., for the family use of the farmer apart from commercial purposes through IFS, create a sort of feeling among the farmers that they are no way inferior to other professionalists in the region. When they feel that their standard of living is on par with others and this will act as a booster tonic to continue agricultural profession without any reluctance which exists at present among most of the farmers.