eChapters

Indian agriculture has the challenge of providing national as well as household food and nutritional security to its ever increasing population with the average size of land holdings shrinking due to increasing fragmentation. Modern agriculture is facing multiple challenges of plateauing genetic potential of major crops, declining productivity in vast tracts of rainfed/ dryland areas, ill-effects of green revolution technologies in all intensively cultivated areas, climatic aberrations etc., which is threatening the sustainability of the important agricultural production systems and national food security. The assets of a small and marginal farmer is of various kinds – a small piece of land, a homestead garden, few chickens and ducks, 1 or 2 cows/pig etc which has to be managed judiciously to sustain the production productivity and livelihood of the farmer. Farmers take decisions as to crop and livestock management given their access to knowledge and information, personal circumstances, and in the context of the broader socioeconomic, institutional and political environment. Under such conditions, some farmers are painstakingly trying to make a livelihood out of their small pieces of land. However, unable to produce sufficiently, some have sold off or leased out their land to big commercial farmers. Such farmers have become a daily labour or shared cropper in their own land, or even migrated to cities in search of livelihood.

To overcome the problems of small resource poor farmers under diverse and risk prone environments a more holistic, resource based, client oriented and interacting approach, popularly known as Integrated Farming System (IFS) has been developed. This system defines output as total biomass outcome of the system. Integrated farming system is a reliable way of obtaining high productivity with substantial nutrient economy in combination with maximum compatibility and replenishment of organic matter by way of effective recycling of organic residues/wastes etc. obtained through integration of various land- based enterprises.

Introduction

In India about 8.6 per cent of population enlisted in the category as ‘Scheduled Tribes’ under Article 342 of the Constitution of India, but they constitute almost 16 per cent of the poor. Lakshadweep is the most populous state with respect to proportion of tribal to total population (94.8 per cent) whereas, in Uttar Pradesh tribal population is lowest with only 0.6 per cent of the total. In Odisha tribal constitutes 22.8 per cent of total population. In India literacy rate of tribal is 59 per cent as against that of general category is 69 per cent. Tribal people are observed to be strongly associated with the forests, hills and remote areas, practising a unique life style, having a unique set of cultural and religious beliefs. Over the generations these communities have evolved time tested farming systems, which are purely subsistence in approach and are keeping pace in perfect harmony with nature. Over the recent few decades, however, population growth and lack of harmony between different agriculture and developmental policies have threatened these traditional agricultural systems for extinction. The encroachment of local Governments and private interests on forest and mineral resources has pushed the tribal groups on to increasingly degraded land, thus their survival became a constant struggle.

The primitive societies have passed through several stages of economic development everywhere in the world. Thus one can find the stages of food gathering, hunting and fishing, farming, etc. among the Indian tribes. The tribes living in the forests and hills usually earn their livelihood by means of food gathering, hunting and fishing. Such is the life of Kadar of Kerala, Birhor and Kharia of Bihar and other tribes. The tribes living in dense forests, full of wild beasts, live on hunting, such as the tribes of Naga, Kuki, Bhil, Santhal and Gond. The hunters leave the females to carry out household activities in the morning and return in the evening after hunting. In some tribes there is a usual custom of hunting collectively. The Nagas use spears, arrows and bows. The Bhils are very much specialized in shooting by arrow. The tribes living near rivers and seas usually earn their livelihood by catching fish. The hilly tribes rear the cattle, an example of which are Goojars and the tribes of Chamba. The Todas of Nilgiri rear buffaloes. Some tribes also carry out cultivation, but they are generally shifting from one place to another. So shifting cultivation is an intrinsic part of tribal system and tradition. Among the cultivating tribes are the Santhals and Gonds. Tribal groups mostly do not have land ownership and have a limited option to adopt agricultural operations in forest areas. Considering their sustenance Government of Odisha has passed an Act “Schedule Tribes and other forest dwellers Forest Right Act” in 2006. It permits ownership of tribals on forest land up to 4 ha. for forest use and subsistence agricultural activity without any penalty. Cottage industries, such as weaving cloths, preparing ropes and skins and utensils of different metals are prevalent in many tribes. The Kharia people are very much specialized to cottage industries. Their living standard is very poor in spite of their hard work.

Introduction

The challenge of increased food production to meet food security needs still persists 50 years after the start of the Green Revolution as population growth continues to increase in many developing countries. There appears to be no alternative but to increase agricultural productivity and the associated individual factor productivities (such as water, labor, nutrients, energy and capital) to meet the food demand by 2050 and to alleviate poverty and hunger. Thus, needs technological initiatives for further agricultural intensification. But already happening negative effect of crop production intensification on essential natural resources such as soil, water, biodiversity, and associated ecosystem services has forced agriculture stakeholders to search for novel initiatives that focus on sustainable production optimization rather than just intensification. Furthermore increased food supply is a necessity though not sufficient for eliminating hunger and poverty. What is important is who produces the food, has access to the technology and knowledge to produce it, and has the purchasing power to acquire it. Of the developing world’s 5.5 billion people, 3 billion live in rural areas – nearly half of humanity. Of these rural inhabitants, an estimated 2.5 billion are in households involved in agriculture, and 1.5 billion are in smallholder households (World Bank, 2008 and Herren, 2010). Poor farmers need low-cost and readily available technologies and practices to increase local food production and to raise their income. At the same time, land and water degradation is increasingly posing a threat to food security and the livelihoods of rural people who generally live on degradation-prone lands. There are several other key issues while relating the situation to Indian context.

Introduction

It is obvious beyond doubt that the climate is changing. Climate has also been changing in the past, but its rate of change has been unprecedented in recent past years. It is true that no one could stop the climate from changing, but could do a lot for mitigating some of its effects and formulate adaptation mechanisms to it. Agriculture, especially the small holder producers have been at the receiving end of the climate change effects, resulting into not only in the fluctuating and unstable productivity, loss of natural resources and consequent livelihoods, but also to their survival.

Climate change and food insecurity are two most pressing challenges human beings are facing today and has emerged as the biggest twin challenge of this century. There are evidences that the increase in greenhouse gases caused by human activities is responsible for global warming and consequent climate change (FAO, 2007). Under the six emissions scenarios the global average surface temperatures are expected to increase by 1.1°C - 6.4°C this century [IPCC, 2007]. Climate change has its impact on almost everything on the earth and so on the food production. The agriculture plays a very important role in the economy of most of the nations of the developing world. For India, agriculture is the base of nation’s economy, largely rainfed and dominated by smallholders (Singh 2008 and 2010). As per reports from a number of governments, non-government and intergovernmental organizations, the countries and agriculture especially practiced by smallholders are particularly vulnerable to climatic changes and they have least capacity to adapt to these changes. In most of the developing countries of the world, the agriculture is not merely a matter of cultural practice but it is the source of livelihoods of millions of smallholders and their dependents. Changing climate as predicted will not only affect the agricultural productivity but also heavily hit the lives and livelihoods of the smallholder families and ultimately lead to food insecurity to the concerned nation and the world (Singh et al. 2012). Business-as-usual scenarios of population growth and food consumption patterns indicate that agricultural production will need to increase by 70 percent by 2050 to meet global demand for food. South-Asian countries made tremendous progress in food production in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. with an impressive growth of food production, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal transformed themselves from countries with a chronic food deficit to countries that were almost self sufficient in early 1990s. Except Afghanistan, all these countries had exported some quantities of food grain in late 1990s. The dynamic growth in the agriculture sector has, however, recently been lost. Productivity of major food grains has slowed and has been decline for some crops (Kumar et al. 2008) with food production failing to keep pace with population growth (G. Rasul and A. Schild 2009). As a result, South-Asian countries are now finding it difficult to meet their population most basic food and nutritional needs and remain vulnerable to food insecurity (Tab.1).

Mechanization of agriculture is essential for optimal utilization of vital inputs for crop production system such as soil, water, seed, fertilizer, pesticide and labour force leading to higher productivity and reduced cost of production for greater profitability. Thus with the support of mechanization, the agrarian sector as an enterprise needs to become sustainable and economically competitive which coincides with the objectives of the Integrated farming System concept. Mechanization also imparts capacity to the farmers to carry out farm operations with dignity, comfort and freedom from drudgery, making the farming agreeable vocation for educated rural youth as well. It helps the farmers to achieve timeliness and precisely meter and apply costly input for better efficacy and achieve higher productivity with reduced application of inputs. Small and marginal farmers now make use of high capacity agricultural machines on custom hire basis to enjoy the economic benefits. As such, the broad subject of agriculture can be understood as production agriculture, which takes care the field operations in the crop production system for higher productivity and post production agriculture, better known as post harvest technology which looks for reducing the loss of produce and value addition for economic gains. The IFS outlines the need of sustainability for farmers with limited resources of land, water and economy while mechanization aims at maximizing the profitability in agricultural system with a commercial attitude. Since the availability of labour force during peak hours of need and hike in wage very often creates hindrance in production and post production agriculture, mechanization can be the right answer to harness the benefits of IFS approach.

Commercialization is essential for agricultural development, which, amongst other things, entails mechanization of agriculture to reduce the cost of production and to increase the yield of crops. In some instances, agricultural commercialization may take place even without mechanization. However, due to the ever increasing agricultural labor scarcity in developing countries, an extensive scale agricultural commercialization may not be possible without mechanization.

The various farm operations involved in crop production system are land leveling, tillage for seed bed preparation, sowing and planting, weeding and interculture, spraying, harvesting and threshing. The mechanization of all these operation has been appreciated by the farmers which are discussed in the following paragraphs.

The stages through which the commodity passes from harvest till consumption are considered as post harvest stages. Post harvest management is one important component of agriculture and is the key to make more food and nutrition available to people. In integrated farming system, varieties of foods are produced. However, if they are not stored properly and/or processed, there may be both quantitative and qualitative losses. The produce may be attacked by different extraneous organisms including microorganisms, birds, rodents, etc. These spoilage agents may impair the quality of food, degrade the nutritional value and even make the food unfit for consumption. Besides, value addition of the food produce is another area where the overall profitability of the farming system can be improved. Thus proper management of post harvest operations and value addition are very important.

Importance of post harvest management and value addition

It has been estimated that about 10% of the food grains and about 30-40% of the fruits and vegetables are lost every year in a country like India due to improper post harvest management and lack of value addition. New avenues to increase food production are being explored to meet the demand of growing population of the country. However, prevention of post harvest losses is one basic step that can be taken up to make more food available for the people. In addition, proper post harvest management and food processing can help in the following aspects.

Introduction

Honey bees are the most fascinating creature found in the nature and are very closely associated with our cultural heritage. They have been evolved with structural perfection and behavioral instinct to render their service as the best pollinator and enable to realize the potential yields of several cross pollinated crops under various agro-ecological situations. They are indispensable for human survival. The words of the great scientist Albert Einstein quoted below is very pertinent in this context “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man”.(Thakur, 2011). Thus, starting from honey hunting since time immemorial to traditional bee keeping and its present transformation to scientific bee keeping has been a continuous endeavor of human for harnessing both direct and indirect benefits from bee keeping activities. Bee keeping has been a very popular agro based enterprise which does not compete with any resource of farming system rather acts as an integral component of Integrated farming system. Now-a-days it has not only attracted the attention of a diverse group of people, administrators and institutions for various purposes but also it has been the point of attraction of the rural poor and youth for their livelihood improvement.

Mushrooms have been part of fungal diversity for around 300 million years. A mushroom is a macro fungus with a distinctive fruiting body, which can either be epigeous (above ground) or hypogeous (underground) and large enough to be seen by naked eye and to be picked up by hands. They lack the green matter (chlorophyll) present in plants and grow on dead and decaying organic materials, as phytoparasite or in mycorrhizal association with plants. From these decaying substrate, they absorb their nutrition with the help of fine thread like structures (mycelium), which penetrate into the substratum and are generally not visible on the surface. After the mycelium has grown profusely and absorbed sufficient food materials, it forms the reproductive structure which generally comes out of the substrate and forms fruiting body, commonly known as mushroom. Mushrooms can be divided into four categories (i) Those that are fleshy and edible fall into the edible mushroom category i.e., Agaricus bisporus; (ii) Mushroom that are considered to have medicinal applications are referred to as medicinal mushrooms i.e., Ganoderma lucidum; (iii) Those that are proved to be or poisonous or suspected of being poisonous are named poisonous mushrooms i.e., Amanita phalloides; (iv) those in a miscellaneous category, which include a large number of mushrooms whose properties remains less defined. The toxic/poisonous species commonly referred to as ‘toadstools’ are objects of fear and distrust and have led to certain amount of inhibition and taboo towards mushroom consumption.

Use of mushrooms as food by man has been practiced since time immemorial and probably predates any historical records. The early civilizations of Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Chinese and Mexican appreciated mushroom as delicacy, knew something about their therapeutic value, often used them in religious ceremonies. Greeks regarded them as strength food for warriors while Romans considered them as ‘Food of Gods’ and Chinese regarded mushrooms as ‘Elixir of life’. Much referred ‘Somrus’ in ancient Indian literature is actually a decoction of mushroom. Archeological and other accounts reveal that ancient man used mushroom in religious ceremonies. The Aztecs of South America referred mushroom as ‘teononacte’ (God’s flesh) and worshipped a group of mushrooms as being divine. The high esteem in which mushrooms were held in different civilizations is also indicated by the restriction of the use of many species to the rulers.

Currently 14000 mushroom species are known to exist. Of these about 50 % or 7000 species are considered to posses varying degrees of edibility and almost 3000 species from 31 genera are regarded as prime edible mushrooms. To date only 200 of them are experimentally grown, 100 of them economically cultivated, approximately 60 commercially cultivated and about 10 have reached to industrial scale production in many countries. Furthermore, about 2000 are medicinal mushrooms with varieties of health attributes. The number of poisonous mushroom is usually reported to be relatively small (approximately 1 %), but there is an estimate that about 10 % may have poisonous attributes while 30 species are considered to be lethal.

Introduction

Agriculture has been the joint venture of both men and women since the time immemorial. Women play a significant role in agriculture and are responsible for half of the world’s food production in most of the developing countries. According to International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), women play a central role as producer of food, managers of natural resources, income earners and care takers of household food and nutrition security. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) studies also confirm that women are the mainstay of small scale agriculture, the farm labour force and day to day family subsistence. About 70 per cent of agricultural workers, 80 per cent of food producers and 10 per cent of those who process basic foodstuffs are women and thus making up more than two-third of the workforce in agriculture production. They currently account for 60-70 % of all food production in all the developing countries. Other than agriculture and allied sectors like dairy, poultry, fishery, goatery and sericulture, women are also skilled in handicrafts, wooden works and various other types of small enterprises which boost the rural economy. They are also involved in small scale enterprises like rope making, broom making, bamboo works. All women in rural areas, irrespective to their age, size of their family, size of land holding, caste and community, perform major agricultural tasks. The rural women form the most important productive work force in the economy of majority of the developing nations like India. Agriculture sector employs 4/5^th of all economically active women in the country and 48 per cent of India’s self employed farmers are women (Kumar, 2013). In present scenario, nearly 84 per cent of economically active women in India are engaged in agriculture and allied activities. In a study undertaken by DRWA (Directorate of Research on Women in Agriculture) in low land and rainfed rice in Odisha revealed that under low lying situation, women spent nearly 20 days in uprooting and transplanting, 10 days in intercultural operations and 20 days in harvesting and transportation. In up land rainfed rice women were involved for 40 days mainly in gap filling, weeding, harvesting threshing etc. (Arya, 2008). The rural women of low-income category and lower caste perform more work in farm related field activities while the women of higher income groups perform more work in post harvest processing like storing of food grains, parboiling, winnowing, preparing puffed rice etc. In tribal areas, women participate in all agricultural operations except ploughing. They are seen to do more hard work in the fields than men. Depending upon the socio-cultural variations among different tribal communities, Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) are collected by tribal women. They collect food, fodder, fuel, medicinal plants, building materials and other household materials. Every day during off seasons, they go to forest for collecting NTFPs and sell it in the local hats (market) for day to day expenditure of their family. Sal and kendu leaves are also collected by them for their livelihood support. Ladies are the decision makers in farming sector as well as on other domestic affairs because of their greater contribution of household income. Marketing of their produce and also other materials collected from forest by them are exclusively done by the women group. Tribes mostly depend on forest and forest products during the dry period of the year. Now-a-days non-availability of NTFPs has shifted women from self employed to wage employment.

In recent years, there is gradual realization of the role of women in the field of agriculture & allied areas. Besides domestic work, they are involved in various types of field works relating to production of crops, milk, fish meat, egg, mushrooms & honey bee and other material. Employees in agriculture sector of the country, contributes nearby 80% of all economically active women (Bhatt, 2013). Therefore, rural India is now going through a process of “Feminization of Agriculture”.

Women are critical to the well-being of farm households. Besides child bearing and rearing, women are expected to prepare all meals, maintain the household jobs and assist in crop and animal production. Perhaps, ironically, it is because women who have so many responsibilities that they have been over-looked by agriculturalists and policy makers–it has been more convenient to label men as farmers and women as child raisers and cooks. Rural women form the most important productive work force in the economy of majority of the developing nations including India.

In spite of several efforts there still exists gender gap in the field of agriculture and allied areas. Closing the gender gap is not only the right thing to do; it is the smart thing to do for improved agriculture and food security for all. This was a key message for family farming interventions to close the gender gap.

World wide women play a major role in agriculture; including fisheries, forestry and livestock production. The nature and extent of their involvement is different in various agro production systems. Their role is diversified from management to landless labourer. In overall farm production, on an average women’s contribution is estimated at 55 to 66 per cent of the total labour (Singh, 2013).

The vulnerability of agriculture to climate change has become an important issue resulting in reduced productivity due to adverse climatic changes. The overall purpose is to assess farming systems change to enable adaptation to climate change. It deals with the predicted climate change scenarios and the adaptations necessary to reduce climate change impacts and examines improvement of indigenous breeds for adaptation to climate change. It also explores the use of crop modeling as avenues to address adaptations of crop production systems and draws the recommendations to outlines of future research needs.

Although the adverse effects of climate change are likely to be borne disproportionately by the small farmers of the developing world, it is the integrated farming systems with their high degree of biodiversity which are best equipped to withstand the shocks of climatic extremes. Apart from the landless and urban poor, small farmers are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in the developing world. It is obvious that climate-related environmental stresses are likely to affect individual households differently compared to more market-oriented farmers. The climate change reduces crop yields. The effects on the welfare of subsistence farming families may be quite severe, especially if the subsistence component of productivity is reduced. Changes in quality and quantity of production may affect the labour productivity of the farmer and negatively influence his/her family health(Rosenzweig and Hillel 1998).

Organic farming primarily aimed at cultivating the land and raising crops in such a way so as to keep the soil alive and in good health by use of organic wastes and beneficial microbes. Organic farming is performed with an intension for maintaining diversity of crops, keeping soil healthy for future years, producing high quality products and recycling nutrients. Unlike modern agriculture, organic farming is not depended on synthetic chemicals. Instead, it depends on natural products to boost soil fertility through microbial activity. Organic farming uses a multiple cropping system, which benefits from growing several crops. This crop diversity supports a range of plants, insects, soil micro-organisms and animals that add to a healthy farming system. Organic farmings are of different types such as bio-farming, nature farming, eco-farming and biodynamic farming. Organic agriculture is developed with concented efforts by various people to create the symbiotic relationship between the nature and man. In the present day, organic agriculture has shown potentiality in commercial, social and environmental sector.

Organic farming is a production management system, which promotes agro-ecosystem and agrobiodiversity. The objective of organic farming is to generate all the required plant nutrients inside the farm and adopt crop protection using local resources. Organic farming emphasizes on the use of farm yard manure, crop residues, composts, vermi-compost and bio-fertilizers to enrich soil fertility and use of bio-control measures to manage insect and diseases. In particular, organic agriculture is intended to produce high quality, nutritious food which helps in preventive health care. Organic farming increases biodiversity at every level i.e. from micro-organism to mammals. It strengthens biodiversity by using bio-pesticides and inorganic fertilizers.

Agroforestry is a collective name for land-use systems and technologies in which woody perennials including trees, shrubs, bamboos etc. are deliberately combined on the same land-management unit with herbaceous crops or animals either in some form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence. In agroforestry system there are both ecological and economic interactions amongst the different components (Lundgren and Raintree, 1982). The origin of agroforestry practices, i.e. growing trees with food crops and grasses, is believed to have been during Vedic era (Ancient period, 1000 B.C.), the agro-forestry as a science is introduced only recently. Agro-forestry is the science of designing and developing integrated, self-sustainable, land-management systems that involves the introduction and retention of woody components such as trees, shrubs, bamboos, canes and palms along with agricultural crops including pastures or animals, simultaneously or sequentially on the same unit of land and time, to satisfy the ecological as well as socio-economic needs of people. This practice of growing trees and arable crops together on the same piece of land is an age-old practice with the dry land farmers. Agroforestry results in multiple products, increases income, reduces runoff and soil loss, utilizes off-season rainfall and radiation and gives stability to dry land agriculture. Further it makes the future generation farmers to inherit not only the land of their predecessors, but also the wealth of standing biomass of trees.

National Forest Policy (1988) has set a goal that 33% of the country’s geographical area should be under forest and tree cover. Under Tenth Five Year Plan, the Government of India has set a target to increase the country’s forest cover up to 25%. According to the latest report of Forest Survey of India (2013), the forest cover in the country is 697,898 km², constituting 21.23% of its total geographical area. Out of this, dense forest constitutes 12.24 % and open forest 8.99 %. The only solution to achieve these targets is through the practice of agroforestry. Therefore, in the quest of optimising productivity, the multi-tier system came into existence.

Introduction

Poultry farming is an emerging activity for enhancing nutrition and providing livelihood support to the farmers of this country. Since two decades, this component emerge as the fastest growing segment of agriculture where the broiler segment having a growth rate of more than 10% and the egg production 5-6% per year. As per the report by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, India has one of the world’s largest and fastest growing poultry, ranked third in egg production (FAOSTAT) and sixth in broiler meat production. Poultry farming is lucrative because there is minimum investment to start, rapid return, high feed conversion ratio and provides continuous source of income for the farm.

Introduction

Agriculture accounts for a large share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), exports, and employs more than 60% of the work force in India (FAO, 2001). The failure or success of agriculture determines the economic growth of the country. As human population grows so does the demand for food and, therefore, demand for land to grow food. Ironically, the demand to convert agricultural land to commercial and residential developments is also very high due to population growth and urbanization. This is reducing the amount of land available for agricultural purpose. This scenario is being noticed in most of the developing countries like India. Against this background, agriculture will be expected to meet food, feed, and fiber demands of a world population that is anticipated to grow from approximately 6 billion in 1999 to 11 billion by 2050 (USDA, 2010). Small and fragmented land holdings do not allow farmers to have independent farm resources like draught animals, tractors, bore wells, tube wells and other sophisticated farm machineries for various cultural operations. While crop production is the primary farming enterprise in the country, livestock raising serves as an auxiliary activity to crop production. About 90% of livestock population are in the hands of the smallholders where adequate supply of high quality forage is a common problem. Integrated farming system (IFS) models developed in different parts of the country involving dairy, duckery, poultry, horticulture, apiary, pisciculture and plantation crops viz. coconut, cocoa, nutmeg, banana, pineapple etc. along with crops, have been found to increase net profit significantly as compared to cropping alone.

Today the world is facing a variety of interrelated problems such as food production, energy use, pollution, unemployment and urbanization, mainly because the developmental strategies contravene the basic philosophy of ecology. The world ecosystem is becoming increasingly more unstable through an ever growing dependence on finite resources of fossil fuels. Food production system in developed countries, both terrestrial agriculture and fisheries are energy intensive and are thus, not entirely suitable for developing countries. An alternative strategy to an increasing reliance on fossil for agriculture development should depend on locally available sources of renewable energy and resources. A significant effect could be made through recycling organic wastes into fish. Organic wastes can be recycled in ecologically sound pond based systems fueled by solar energy. The reuse of wastes would safeguard the environment from pollution and lead to a reduction in diseases of insanitation. Recycling of animal wastes is the cheapest way of protein production by reducing cost of production. Fish farming in Europe, Israel and USA is energy intensive, since more farmers use commercially prepared feed formulations which resulted in cost to feed often exceeding 50% of the total operating costs.

In recycling of waste through fish culture, fish is considered to have a great potential to change raw protein into high energetic edible protein. The rationale behind raising fish on organic manure is that about 72.98% of the nitrogen, 62.87% of phosphorus and 82.92% of potassium in the feed rations fed to animals are recovered in their excreta. In most of the world, cereals and legumes account for most of the proteins and calories consumed, but fish produced cheaply by recycling wastes would provide a low energy way to produce an animal product and diversify the diet. Fish, being the cheap source of animal protein is now widely accepted to meet the persistent and widespread malnutrition in developing countries.

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector in the world with annual growth in excess of 10% over the last two decades. Much of this development has occurred in Asia, which also has the greatest variety of cultured species and systems. Asia is also perceived as the ‘home’ of aquaculture, as aquaculture has a long history in several regions and knowledge of traditional systems and is most widespread.

Introduction

Since times immemorial, world agriculture is following the traditional agri-horticultural methods for livelihood support. With unusual growth of population and faster development of industrial sector, a steep competition surfaced among the domestic, industrial and agricultural sectors for land, water and other natural resources. Though agriculture uses a major chunk of land and water for crop production, it becomes insufficient to provide food, nutritional and aesthetic security to the growing millions at global level in general and the third world nations in particular. Hence, there lies a need to take the avenue of Integrated Farming practices by following the logics of Precision Farming. All over the world, farmers work hard but do not make money, especially small farmers because there is very little left after they pay for all inputs (seeds, livestock breeds, fertilizers, pesticides, energy, feed, labour, etc.). The emergence of Integrated Farming Systems (IFS) based on horticulture farming could help to develop a framework for an alternative development model to improve the feasibility of small sized farming operations in relation to larger ones. Integrated farming system (or integrated agriculture) is a commonly and broadly used word to explain a more integrated approach to farming as compared to monoculture approaches.

Indian agriculture is characterized by small farm holdings. The average per capita land holding is speculated to squeeze to 0.10 ha by 2050. The proportion of marginal holdings is to swell more due to the growing population, inheritance laws of division of land and diversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural purposes. But we need around 457 Mt food grains to feed our nation by 2050 as against the present level production of about 257 Mt. Significant changes are also taking place in domestic and international demand for crop products due to improvement in income and standard of living, fast urbanization, and changing life styles and food preference patterns. The food demand is projected to grow annually at 2.0 % for cereals as against 3-4 % for edible oils and pulses, 4-5% for milk and milk products, meat, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, sugar and gur. In contrast, association of emerging problems like declining per capita land availability, increasing nutritional insecurity, decrease in factor productivity, increasing risk with individual farm component, unsustainability of cropping systems and unwillingness of young farmers towards farming lead to an apprehension in achieving the target. Farming system which aims at long term productivity, profitability, recycling of resources and employment generation, comes out as a major strategy to tackle all such problems. In farming system, various components of farming are integrated based on the cardinal principles of minimizing the competition and maximizing the complementarity between the enterprises so as to improve productivity and profitability as well as resource conservation along with maintenance of the environment. A survey conducted by the AICRP on Integrated Farming Systems indicates existence of 19 predominant farming systems with majority (85%) as crop + livestock (Gangwar and Ravisankar, 2014). Crop dominant farming systems are existing in most of the states such as Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Goa, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, North-East, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal while livestock dominant systems, are present in Rajasthan and Parts of Gujarat. West Bengal, parts of Odisha and Assam states have the fisheries as a major source of income to the existing farming systems. The scope for promotion of horticulture (fruit) based systems exists in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, parts of Uttar Pradesh and in Sikkim while plantation dominant systems, are available in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Kerala. Further, the contribution of crop and livestock to gross income of existing farming systems in 732 marginal households in 30 districts of 20 states in various NARP zones of India indicates that in majority of the place crop component contributes more than 50 % while at few districts such as Samba (Jammu), Aurangabad (Maharashtra), Mehsana and Panchmahal (Gujarat), livestock component contributes either equally or more. Thus cropping systems play a pivotal role in most of the farming systems of India.

Introduction

Decision making is the most important aspect of any business and industry. Farming is a business and agriculture is also an industry. Hence, decision making plays an important role with regard to the problems concerning production of commodities. The main questions before the producer or the production manager are: (i) What to produce, (ii) How to produce, and (iii) How much to produce.

Linear programming (LP) is a modeling tool that can assist in the solution of many problems in agriculture. It is useful in selecting the best alternative from a number of available course of actions.

LP models are designed to “optimize” a specific objective criterion subject to a set of constraints. The quality of the resulting solution depends on the completeness of the model in representing the real system.

Introduction

Agriculture is a dynamic sector affected by rapid changes in environment and climate, technologies, development priorities, impact of changes in other sectors and social changes such as family structure, migration and international policies such as globalization and liberation. The Indian Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, with its package of improved seeds, farm technology, better irrigation and chemical fertilizers, was highly successful in meeting its primary objective of increasing crop yields and augmenting food supply. However, the Green Revolution as a development approach has not necessarily translated into benefits for the lower socioeconomic strata, particularly the rural poor and farm women, in terms of greater food security or greater economic opportunity. It has increased the need for cash incomes in rural households to cover the costs of technological inputs which has forced women to work as agricultural laborers and increased the need for unpaid female labor for farming tasks.

In the era of burgeoning population and shrinking natural resources integrated farming system may be the panacea. Integrated Farming system approach envisages the integration of agroforestry, horticulture, dairy, sheep and goat rearing, fishery, poultry, pigeon, biogas, mushroom, sericulture and by-product utilization of crops with the main goal of increasing the income and standard of living of small and marginal farmers. Integrated systems are about bringing crops and livestock into an interactive relationship with the expectation that together, as opposed to alone, they will generate positive effects on outcomes of interest, such as profitability overall productivity and conservation of nonrenewable resources. It is, however, much more than this. The “system” includes the environment, soil characteristics, landscape positions, genetics and ecology of plant and animals. It involves management practices, goals and lifestyles of humans, social constraints, economic opportunities, marketing strategies and externalities including energy supplies and costs and impacts of farm policies. Systems also reflect available natural resources and the impact on their use, wildlife issues, target and non-target plant and animal species, micro-organisms and indeed all of the definable and indefinable factors that ultimately interact to result in an outcome that is never constant. The aims of integrated farming system is to increase productivity, profitability, sustainability, balanced food, clean environment, recycling of available resources and income round the year. Besides we can also think for adoption of new technology, solving energy crises: fuel and fodder crises, avoiding deforestation, increasing employment generation by taking more than one component, input-output efficiency and enhancing opportunity for agriculture oriented industries as well as uplifting living standard of the farmers