A farming system is defined as a population of individual farm systems that have broadly similar resource bases, enterprise patterns, household activities, and constraints, for which similar development strategies and interventions would be appropriate.
Depending on the scale of the analysis, a farming system can encompass a few dozen or many millions of households.
Concept of Farming Systems in Agricultural Resource Management
Farming system designates a set of agricultural activities organized while preserving land productivity, environmental quality, and maintaining a desirable level of biological diversity and ecological stability.
The emphasis is more on a system rather than on gross output. In other words, a “farming system” is a resource management strategy to achieve economic and sustainable agricultural production to meet diverse requirements of the farm household while preserving the resource base and maintaining high environmental quality.
The farming system, in its real sense, will help in the following ways to lift the economy of Indian agriculture and the standard of living of farmers.
Farming system specifically refers to a group combination of enterprises in which the products and/or byproducts of one enterprise serve as inputs for the production of another enterprise.
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Components of Farming Systems in Agricultural Production
Farming is defined as the way in which farm resources are allocated to the needs and priorities of farmers in their local circumstances, which include agro-climatic conditions such as the quantity, distribution, and reliability of rainfall, soil type, topography, temperature, and economic and institutional circumstances like market opportunities, prices, institutional and infrastructure facilities, and technology.
Therefore, a farming system is a complex interrelated matrix of soil, plants, animals, implements, power, labor, capital, and other inputs controlled in part by farming families and influenced to varying degrees by political, economic, institutional, and social forces that operate at many levels.
Thus, a farming system is the result of a complex interaction among several interdependent components. To achieve it, the individual farmer allocates qualities of four factors of production land, labor, capital, and management which, within the knowledge possessed, will maximize the attainment of goals being strived for.
Farming systems consist of several enterprises like cropping systems, dairying, piggery, poultry, fishery, beekeeping, etc. These enterprises are interrelated. The end products and wastes of one enterprise are used as inputs in others.
The waste of dairying, like dung, urine, and refuse, is used for the preparation of farmyard manure (FYM), which is an input in cropping systems.
The straw obtained from crops is used as fodder for cattle, which are used for different field operations for growing crops. Thus, different enterprises of farming systems are highly interrelated.
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Sustainability in Tropical Agricultural Systems
Although traditional tropical agricultural systems are invariably subsistence, based on low inputs, modernization strategies attempt to achieve high and economic agricultural production on a continuous basis. Improved agricultural systems should, however, be sustainable, preserve the resource base, and maintain high environmental quality.
New and improved systems must look beyond production and specifically address the issues of biological sustainability and ecological stability. The land resource is not only finite; it is also non-renewable.
The objective of improved agricultural systems, therefore, lies in preserving and improving land productivity while maintaining biological diversity, environmental quality, and ecological stability.
The most important issue of land is to develop sustainable food systems that have high production but do not upset the delicate soil-vegetation-chemical balance.
This article explained the concept of a farming system as well as the components of a farming system. A “farming system” is a resource management strategy to achieve economic and sustainable agricultural production to meet diverse requirements of the farm household while preserving the resource base and maintaining high environmental quality.
A farming system is a complex interrelated matrix of soil, plants, animals, implements, power, labor, capital, and other inputs controlled in part by farming families and influenced to varying degrees by political, economic, institutional, and social forces that operate at many levels.
The farming system is the result of a complex interaction among several interdependent components. To achieve it, the individual farmer allocates qualities of four factors of production land, labor, capital, and management which, within the knowledge possessed, will maximize the attainment of goals being strived for.
Farming systems consist of several enterprises like cropping systems, dairying, piggery, poultry, fishery, beekeeping, etc. These enterprises are interrelated. The end products and wastes of one enterprise are used as inputs in others.
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