FARMING SYSTEMS

• A farm is a system in that it has INPUTS,

PROCESSES and OUTPUTS
INPUTS - these are things that go into the farm
and may be split into Physical Inputs (e.g. amount
of rain, soil) and Human Inputs (e.g. labour,
money etc.)
PROCESSES - these are things which take place
on the farm in order to convert the inputs to
outputs (e.g. sowing, weeding, harvesting etc.)
OUTPUTS - these are the products from the farm
(i.e. wheat, barley, cattle)
 Components of Farming Systems
• In the integrated farming system, it is always
emphasized to combine cropping with other
enterprises/ activities, many enterprises are
available and these includes cattle ,sheep or
goat rearing, poultry, piggery, rabbit rearing,
bee keeping etc. Any one or more can be
combined with the cropping.
 The role of tree components in
farming systems
• 1) maintain productivity of land
• 2) make productive use of land in situations of
scarce capital and labour where trees, as low-
input, low-management crops, constitute the
most effective use of these resources;
• 3) maximize returns to land
• 4) increase income-earning opportunities
• 5) strengthen risk management through
diversification of outputs,
 Farming systems and their
characteristics
• Each individual farm has its own specific
characteristics.
• It vary with resource endowments and family
circumstances.
• The household, its resources, and the
resource flows and interactions at this
individual farm level are together referred to
as a farm system.
• A farming system is defined as a population of
individual farm systems that have broadly
similar resource bases, enterprise patterns,
household livelihoods and constraints, and for
which similar development strategies and
interventions would be appropriate
 Classification of the farming
systems
• The classification of the farming systems has
been based on a number of key factors,
including:
• (i) the available natural resource base;
• (ii) the dominant pattern of farm activities
and household livelihoods, including
relationship to markets;
• (iii) the intensity of production activities.
• Based on these criteria, eight broad categories
of farming system have been distinguished:
• 1)Irrigated farming systems, embracing a
broad range of food and cash crop
production;
• 2)Wetland rice based farming systems,
dependent upon seasonal rains supplemented
by irrigation;
• 3)Rainfed farming systems in humid areas,
dominant crops or mixed crop-livestock
systems;
• 4)Rainfed farming systems in steep and highland
areas, which are often mixed crop-livestock
systems;
• 5) Rainfed farming systems in dry or cold low
potential areas, with mixed crop-livestock and
pastoral systems with very low productivity.
• 6)Dualistic (mixed large commercial and small
holders) farming systems, across a variety of
ecologies and with diverse production patterns;
• 7) Coastal artisanal fishing systems, which often
incorporate mixed farming elements; 8)Urban
based farming systems, typically focused on
horticultural and livestock production.
Factors affecting to farming system
• natural resources and climate;
• science and technology;
• trade liberalization and market development;
• policies, institutions and public goods; and
• information and human capital.
 Farming Systems approach

• Three basic types of inputs in the farming

system: land, labour, and capital.
• Management involves allocating these to
three different activities or processes, that is,
crops, livestock, and off-farm enterprises.
• In making decisions on how to allocate their
inputs in producing one or more products,
farmers have to make some difficult decisions
• These decisions will involve using their
knowledge to come as close as possible to
fulfilling the goals.
• These goals may vary from farmer to farmer
(e.g., maximizing their income, producing
enough food to feed the family, etc.)
• Many farmers are likely to want to maximize
their incomes.
• The resulting combination of products (i.e.,
crops, livestock, and off-farm enterprises) they
are producing with their inputs results from the
farming system they have adopted.
• Nevertheless, the extent to which the farming
system fulfils the goals they have chosen will
depend on the managerial skills of the farming
family and its ability to make good decisions in
the allocation of inputs.
 Forestry
• Forestry is the science, art, and craft of
creating, managing, using, and conserving
forests and associated resources in a
sustainable manner to meet desired goals,
needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry
is practiced in plantations and natural stands.
The main goal of forestry is to create and
implement systems that allow forests to
continue a sustainable provision of
environmental supplies and services
 Agroforestry

• Agroforestry is an integrated approach of

using the interactive benefits from combining
trees and shrubs with crops and/or livestock.
It combines agricultural and forestry
technologies to create more diverse,
productive, profitable, healthy, and
sustainable land-use systems.[1] A narrow
definition of agroforestry is "trees on farms."
 Plantation forestry
• A plantation forestry is a long artificially
established forest, where trees are grown for
sale, often in distant markets rather than for
local on-site consumption
• There are basically two major farm-operating
objectives, profit maximization on market-
oriented farms and household sustenance on
subsistence-oriented farms
 Objectives of farming system
• There are basically two major farm-operating
objectives, profit maximization on market-
oriented farms and household sustenance on
subsistence-oriented farms
• To develop a agriculture system for
guaranteed adequate food production
• To develop self-sufficient agriculture system
• Growing the economy
• Job creation
• Economic empowerment
• Poverty alleviation
Lesson 5:Classification of Farming Systems

• when farms are quite similar in kind and

production of the crops and live stock that are
produced and methods and practices used in
production, the group is called as type of
farming.
• F. S. Classified: On the basis of the share of
gross income received from different sources
and comparative advantage,
 F. S. Classification
• A) According to the Size of the Farm:
• a) Collective farming.
b) cultivation farming: i) small scale farming ii)
large scale farming.
• B) According to the Proportion of Land,
Labour and Capital Investment:
• a) Intensive cultivation.
b) Extensive cultivation.
• C) According to the Value of Products or
Income or on the basis of Comparative
Advantages:
• i) Specialized farming.
ii) Diversified farming.
iii) Mixed farming.
iv) Ranching.
v) Dry farming .
• D) According to the Water Supply:
• i) Rained farming.
ii) Irrigated farming.
• E) According to:
• I) Type of Rotation:
• a) lay system:i)) unregulated lay farming
ii)) regulated lay system.
b) Field system.
c) Perennial crop system.
• II) Intensity of the Rotation:
• a) Shifting cultivation.
b) Lay or fallow farming.
c) Permanent cultivation.
d) Multiple cropping.
• F) Classification According to Degree of
Commercialization:
• a) Commercialized farming.
b) Partly commercialized farming.
c) Subsistence farming.
• G) Classification According to Cropping and
Animal Activities:
• H) Classification According to Implements
Used for Cultivation:
• a) Spade farming.
b) Hoe farming.
c) Mechanized or tractor farming
Objectives of classification
 Farming systems
• Chena/shifting cultivation
• temporary and permanent cultivation
• dry farming,
• conservation farming
• organic farming,
• perennial based farming systems – groforestry,
Kandyan forest garden, coconut based farming
systems, export agricultural crop based
farming systems, integrated farming systems,
 Chena/Shifting cultivation
• This farming system begins with the felling of
primary or secondary forest and burning the
organic matter accumulated by forests to
speed up mineral nutritive cycle of the
ecosystem and to control weeds, diseases and
pests. Then, grain crops including upland rice
and maize are directly planted in the site for a
short period.
 Chena…
• The land for shifting cultivation will be
abandoned after two or three years' cropping
due to the soil becoming poor by erosion,
uncontrolled weeds and serious diseases and
declined productivity.
• After nine or ten years' fallow, the land may
be recovered and will be used again.
 Agroforestry
• Agro forestry is a collective name of land use
system and technologies where woody
perennials are deliberately used form the
same land management units as agricultural
crops and or animals in the same form of
spatial arrangement of temporal sequence. In
agro – forestry systems, there is both
ecological and economic interaction between
different components.
 Organic Farming:
• Is defined as the production system in which
avoids or largely exclude the use of synthetically
compounded fertilizers, pesticide, growth
regulator and livestock feed additives. To the
maximum extent feasible organic farming system
realy upon crop rotations, crop residues, animal
manures, legumes, green manure, off- farm
organic wastes and aspects of biological pest
control insets, pest weeds etc.
 Dryland farming
• cultivation of crops in regions with annual rainfall
less than 750 mm.
• Dryland farming is uniquely dependent on natural
rainfall
• Capturing and Conservation of Moisture
• Monsoon and Length of Crop Growing Season
• Drought
• Moisture Conservation in Drylands
• Water Harvesting and Protective Irrigation.
 Dry land farming…
• Crops and Cropping Systems
• Mitigating Adverse Effect of Aberrant
Weather
• Alternate Land Use Systems
• Watershed Management
 Kandyan forest garden
• Kandyan Forest gardening is a low-
maintenance sustainable plant-based food
production and agroforestry system based on
woodland ecosystems.
• This is incorporating fruit and nut trees,
shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables
which have yields directly useful to humans.
• Seven layers can be seen this forest garden
• ‘Canopy layer’ consisting of the original
mature fruit trees.
• ‘Low-tree layer’ of smaller nut and fruit trees.
• ‘Shrub layer’ of fruit bushes such as berries.
• ‘Herbaceous layer’ of perennial vegetables
and herbs.
• ‘Ground cover layer’ of edible plants that
spread horizontally.
• ‘Rhizosphere’ or ‘underground’ dimension of
plants grown for their roots and tubers.
• ‘Vertical layer’ of vines and climbers
 Importance
• Productive gardens of permanent cash-crops;
• Improved individual incomes from
agricultural production;
• Improved access to fuelwood and local
building materials;
• Reduced soil erosion;
• Improved water and catchments
management;
• Heightened food security and family health;
• Reduced pressure on adjacent forestland;
• Increased local biodiversity
 Coconut based farming systems
• Growing annuals, biennials and perennial
crops in between coconut plants and/ or
rearing animals
• From 0-5 yrs of coconut palm – annual,
biennial
• From 25yrs onward – annuals, biennials and
perennials
Export Agricultural crop based f.s.
 Lesson 6:Cropping Systems and
Cropping Patterns
• Cropping system represents crop’s
(Cropping) patterns used on farm &
their interactions with farm
resources, other farm enterprises
and available technology which
determine their makeup.
 Cropping Pattern
• Cropping pattern means the
proportion of area under various
crops at a point of time in a unit
area.
• It indicates yearly sequence and
spatial arrangement of crops &
fallow in an area.
 Lesson 7: Types of cropping systems:

• mono cropping/monoculture
• multiple cropping
• sequential cropping
• really cropping, inter cropping
• mixed cropping
• ratoon cropping
• crop rotation
 Monocropping/ monoculture:

• It refers to growing of only one crop on a

piece of land year after year.
• It may be due to climatologically, socio-
economic conditions or due to specialization
of a farmer in growing a particular crop.
• E.g.: Rice cultivation in lowland area
• Multiple cropping: Growing two or more
crops on the same piece of land in one
calendar year is known as multiple crops.
• Relay cropping: Seeding planting two or more
succeeding crops after flowering and before
the harvest of the standing crop
• Sequential cropping: crops are grown one
after another in sequential cropping and
hence, management practices are different.
• Intercropping: Growing of two or more crops
simultaneously on the same piece of land
(field). There is a crop intensification in both
time and space dimensions. There is intercrop
competition during all or part of crop growth.

• Mixed cropping: Growing two or more crops

simultaneously with no district row
arrangement.
• Ratoon cropping: a practice of growing a crop
from the stubbles of previous crop.
• Crop rotation:
• Type of intercropping:
1. Mixed intercropping
2. Row intercropping
2. Strip intercropping
4. Relay intercropping
 Definitions of Intercropping system:
•
1. Mixed Intercropping: Growing two or more
crops simultaneously with no district row
arrangement.
2. Row Intercropping: Growing two or more
crops simultaneously where one or more
crops are planted in rows.
 Definitions of Intercropping system:
• 3. Strip Intercropping: Growing soil conserving
and soil depleting crops in alternate strips
running perpendicular to the slope of the land
or to the direction of prevailing winds for the
purpose of reducing errosion.
4. Relay Intercropping: Seeding planting two
or more succeeding crops after flowering and
before the harvest of the standing crop.
 Advantages:
• 1. Intercropping gives higher income per unit
area than sole cropping.
2. It acts as an insurance against failure of
crop in abnormal year.
3. Intercrops maintain soil fertility as the
nutrient uptake is made from both layers.
4. Reduce soil runoff.
• Limitations: Intercropping system is
uneconomical and undesirable during
resource limiting periods
• Ex. Dry periods
 Importance of Ratooning:

• i) Ratoon saves cost on preparatory tillage and

planting material.
ii) It gets benefit of residual manure and
moisture.
iii) Ratoon crop matures earlier and gives
more or less same yield as of suru cane.
Iv) Only one ratoon should be taken because
incidence of pests and diseases increases and
deterioration of soil takes place.