Our Technology
INTEGRATED INTENSIVE FARMING SYSTEMS
IIFS A Viable Option for the Future
India has nearly 100 million farming families which constitute 25 percent of the Global Farming population. Most of them cultivate small farms ranging from I to 2 hectares or below.
In fact Lester Brown and Halkane (1994) have estimated that India may have to import more than 40 million tons of food grains annually to balance its food budget by the year 2030. The population will soon exceed 100 Crores. The percapita land and water availability is going down. The efficiency of on farm water management is still low and in many areas the groundwater is being exploited in an unsustainable manner.
Demographic compulsions and declining per capital natural resources availability make it clear that India will have to produce more and more farm products from less and less land and water in next century. Ecological Compulsions indicate that such higher production has to come from technologies that are environmentally sustainable.
Intensive farming will help to optimise returns from the available land, water, labour and capital resources. Crop — live stock, crop-fish, agro forestry and other forms of integrated farming systems can help to provide both additional channels of household income and opportunities for value additions.
Even now over 90 percent of the world’s food comes from the soil and less than 10 percent comes from both inland water and the oceans.
Over 95 million hectares (67 per cent) of the cropped area is rainfed. It accounts for 44 percent of food grains. (55 percent rice and 91 percent pulses, 90 percent of groundnut and 68 percent of cotton.).
Likewise, rain fed areas offer tremendous scope for livestock farming.
In fact some of the best breeds of milch & Drought cattle are endemic to semi — arid and arid regions.
A paper by pingali and Rosegrant (1995) points out that “Agricultural commercialization and diversification involve the gradual replacement of integrated farming system by specialized enterprises for crop, livestock, poultry and aquaculture products.
The vast potential of IIFS for meeting through agriculture, the triple need of more food, more jobs and more income.
Ecological Farming Met by Intensive Integrated Farming System
Ecologically sustainable way would be the starting point of “the second green revolution” and a viable option for the future.
Integrated Intensive Farming Systems (IIFS)
Ecologically farming systems are not only economically rewarding and intellectually challenging but are also energy efficient, employment oriented and environmentally safe. It is a self-reliant method and has to be an integrated system. Opportunities for introducing new material both in crops and in livestock can be explored.
All the ecological farmers have to take decisions by themselves and learn many basic things through trial and error methods.
The development and dissemination of IIFS methodologies will not only help to maximize output and income per unit of land, water, energy, labor and capital, but will also lead to accomplishing this goal in an environmentally and socially friendly manner.
IIFS is knowledge intensive and skill orientated.
It is a vertical growth in food grains production without endangering the ecological assets and beneficial soil micro flora and micro fauna.
What needed is a “Technology mission” mode approach.
Group and community endeavor holds the key for successful implementation of ecological farming over larger areas.
To refine and sustain IIFS technologies, there is need for more investment in public good, research, planned and implemented jointly with farm men and women.
INDIA, IN ALL PROBABILITY WILL EMERGE AS A STRONGER AGRICULTURAL NATION TO COMPETE INTERNATIONALLY.
