The Real Purpose of Integrated Farming System

Integrated Farming Systems create a self-sustaining farm where crops, livestock, fisheries, trees, and value addition units are planned together as one business. Their primary purpose is to increase income, reduce risk, and recycle resources within the farm instead of depending only on a single crop or external inputs.

Integrated Farming System (IFS) aims to make farms more resilient, profitable, and sustainable by combining multiple enterprises that support each other. It reduces waste, uses on-farm resources efficiently, and provides year-round income and employment for farm families.

Crop Production: Field crops, horticulture, fodder, and pulses form the base, supplying food, feed, and raw material.
Livestock & Allied Enterprises: Dairy, poultry, goats, sheep, fisheries, or pigs add regular cash flow and convert crop residues into manure and energy.
Nutrient & Energy Recycling: Compost pits, biogas units, and vermicompost turn farm waste and dung into organic manure and energy, cutting input costs.
Value Addition & On-farm Processing: Small processing, packaging, and direct sale units improve margins and reduce dependence on middlemen.

An Integrated Farming System is a planned combination of two or more farm enterprises such as crops, livestock, fisheries, agroforestry, and processing units operating on the same farm in a mutually supportive way. Each component is linked so that the output or waste of one becomes the input of another, improving overall productivity and stability.

Examples include:

• Crop–livestock–biogas–vermi/compost model
• Crop–fish–duck–horticulture model
• Dairy–fodder–manure–biogas–kitchen garden model

The primary purpose of IFS is to protect farmers from the risk and low returns of single-crop farming. It helps farmers:

• Diversify income sources so loss in one enterprise is balanced by others.
• Reduce dependence on chemical fertilizers and external feed through internal recycling.
• Improve soil health, water use efficiency, and environmental sustainability.
• Generate continuous employment for family labour across seasons.

Integrated Farming Systems benefit:

• Small and marginal farmers seeking higher returns from limited land.
• Medium and large farms looking for efficient resource use and risk management.
• FPOs, cooperatives, and clusters planning model farms and training units.
• Agripreneurs, youth, and NGOs working on sustainable, climate-resilient agriculture.

IFS operates through careful planning of enterprises, resource flows, and calendar of operations. Farmers:

• Map available land, water, labour, and capital, then select compatible enterprises.
• Design linkages (crop residues to livestock, dung to biogas and manure, pond silt to fields, tree leaves to mulch).
• Use crop rotations, mixed farming, and agroforestry to maintain soil fertility and biodiversity.
• Maintain simple records of inputs, outputs, and labour to monitor profitability of each enterprise and the system as a whole.

Farmers adopt IFS when they:

• Want to move beyond single-crop income and build a stable, all-season farm business.
• Face climate variability, water stress, or declining soil fertility and need resilient systems.
• Plan to utilize family labour fully and create on-farm employment for youth and women.
• Aim to supply multiple products—food grains, milk, eggs, fish, fruits, vegetables, manure, and energy—from the same farm unit.