Multiple Water Use Protocols in Integrated Farming System for Enhancing Productivity

Abstract

Agriculture is the largest consumer of water in world. Due to demand of water for industrial and drinking purposes, the share of available water resources in agriculture sector is reducing substantially in near future. However, the food, fodder, fuel, and fibre production for satisfying the demands of enhanced population requires more water. In this scenario, increasing water productivity through diversified farming system has been identified as one of the viable options. Diversified farming, otherwise also called integrated farming system (IFS), represents integration of various enterprises such as cropping systems, horticulture, animal husbandry, fishery, agro-forestry, apiary etc. for optimal utilization of farm resources besides water. Integrated farming, a judicious mix of cropping systems suited to given agro-climatic conditions and socio-economic status of the farmers, shall be able to generate additional employment and income for the small and marginal farmers under both rain-fed and irrigated environment. Although, IFS was mainly initiated in Asian agriculture, it is being introduced in almost all the countries of world. Such a system results in more rationale use of water with judicious distribution among different users. In this paper, different aspects of multiple uses of water for higher productivity and future strategies for enhancing water productivity are discussed.