Farming system diversification: An insight on strengthening the livelihood in a hilly ecosystem

Abstract

To make Indian agriculture remunerative, and enhance farmers’ income, the Government of India initiated a mission for doubling the farmers’ income (DFI) by 2022. For DFI under a conventional cropping system, the agriculture sector needs to grow @15% per annum. Therefore, there is a need for reorienting the conventional cropping system with a more productive alternative integrated farming system, combining on and off-farm occupations with high technological support. With this background, the present study was carried out in a cluster of villages where interventions through a research institution (Farmer FIRST project) were made. Such interventions were undertaken in a cluster of 7 villages involving 500 farm families (2016–19). The technological gaps were identified through benchmark surveys using participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and extensive farmers' group discussions. During this, farmers’ skills and managerial capabilities were explored, and 16 interventions of various farming modules and sub-modules attributed to higher income were identified and implemented. The farmers were continuously provided technological and partial input support in terms of capacity building and seeds, fertilisers and similar others. The results indicated that mushroom production had high potential for supplementing farm income (117% per farm family). The income from food grains increased by 81% whereas, income from seasonal and off-season vegetable crops increased by more than double. Dairy farming exhibited 52.38% increase in income. In absolute terms, the dairy had maximum contribution in increasing income by ₹24,014 followed by food grains (₹13,251). The intervention modules increased the average per-farm family income by ₹46,979, which was highly significant (P<0.01%). The income of 40% of the farm families increased by more than double, while the income of 1% of the farmers increased by >75% in just 2 years. Overall, when four modules and sub-modules of the model were put together, the total farm income per family increased by 67% from ₹70,290 (2016–17) to ₹1,17,269 (2018–19).