Livestock Based Integrated Farming System

Livestock Based Integrated Farming System

Dr. A.K. Chaturvedani¹*, Dr. Deepjyoti Roy²

¹Assistant Professor, Department of Veterinary Extension, FVAS, RGSC-BHU, Mirzapur (U.P.) 231001

²Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Veterinary Extension, FVAS, RGSC-BHU, Mirzapur (U.P.) 231001

Department of Veterinary Extension,

Faculty of Veterinary and Animal Sciences,

RGSC-Banaras Hindu University, Mirzapur (U.P.) 231001

*Email id- ajaychaturvedani@bhu.ac.in

 

Abstract

Integrated farming systems (IFS) is an ecofriendly approach in which waste of one enterprise becomes the input of another thus its make more efficient use of resources from the farm. IFS as a mixed farming system that consists of at least two separate but logically interdependent parts of a crop and livestock enterprises. IFS helps in improving the soil health, weed and pest control, increase water use efficiency and maintains water quality. In integrated farming system the use of harmful chemical fertilizers, weed killers and pesticides should be minimized and also provide safeguards to the environment from the adverse effects. Integrated farming system improves economic condition of the small and marginal farmers which enhanced the education, health and social obligations and overall improvement in livelihood security. Though IFS approach the use of chemicals (fertilizers and pesticides) can be reduced to provide chemical free healthy food to the society. Governments and development agencies have designed projects/programmes in promoting IFS through demonstration of successful models and other means. In the present article, an attempt is made to summarize different Livestock Based Integrated Farming System models to contribute towards enhancing the farmers’ income.

Keywords: – Livestock, Integrated Farming System, Concept, Advantages and Limitations.

Introduction

Livestock plays a significant role in rural economic progress by supplementing family income and generating lucrative employment, especially for landless laborers, smallholders, and marginal farmers (Ali, 2007). Historically, livestock rearing has been recognized as an integral element of the agricultural sector, and it has been observed that combining livestock with other farming systems such as fisheries, apiculture, horticulture, agro-forestry, etc. can be more productive and sustainable than specialized and intensive systems. This system of combining livestock with different farming systems termed as Integrated livestock farming system (ILFS) which helps in efficient utilization of natural resources and wastes/organic residues and involve recycling of bio resources. For example paddy straw a by-product from rice crop can be used as a valuable input for mushroom cultivation or as a source of dry fodder for dairy animals. Similarly, spent of mushroom cultivation (used straw) can be used as a raw material in compost or vermin-compost pits and by-products from dairy unit like dung can be used as fish feed or raw material for vermin-compost unit (Fazaeli and Masoodi, 2006). In this way an integrated approach to farming can becomes more beneficial than monoculture and specialized farming and it can generates employment around the year along with additional income.

Concept of IFS

Integrated farming system (IFS) is a broadly used term to explain the suitability of a more integrated approach towards farming over monoculture approaches. In this system an interrelated set of enterprises are maintained and by-products or wastes from one production system becomes an input for another production system, which reduces cost and improves production and/or income (Patra, 2016). Thus, IFS works as a system of systems (Soni et al., 2014). FAO (2017) stated that ‘there is no waste’, and ‘waste is only a misplaced resource which can become a valuable material for another product’ in IFS. For example, paddy straw, by-product from rice crop can be used as a valuable input for mushroom cultivation or dry fodder for dairy animals. Similarly spent of mushroom cultivation (used straw) can be used as a raw material in compost or vermin-compost pits and by-products from dairy unit like dung can be used as fish feed or raw material for vermin-compost unit. The farming system is essentially cyclic, organic resources – livestock – land – crops.

Therefore, management decisions related to one component may affect the others. The integrated livestock-farming system not only provides ecological sustainability and economic viability but also improves agricultural productivity to some extent. Lal and Miller (1990) defined farming system as a resource management strategy to achieve economic and sustained agricultural production to meet diverse requirements of farm livelihood while preserving resource base and maintaining a high level of environment quality. On the other hand, a farming system is the complex interaction of a number of inter-dependent components, where an individual farmer allocates certain quantities and qualities of four factors of production, viz. land, labour, capital and equipments to which he has access (Mahapatra, 1994).

 

Basic principle of Livestock Based Integrated Farming System

• Integrated farming system when agriculture was done jointly with livestock, land, water, and plants were fully utilized. An integrated farming system is a commonly used term to describe a more integrated approach to farming than one-way farming methods. This refers to agricultural systems that coordinate the production of livestock and crops, or fish and livestock, and are sometimes referred to as integrated biosystems.
• In this system, an interconnected set of enterprises is used to input “waste” from one component to another part of the system. This reduces costs and improves productivity and /or income. Because it uses waste as a resource, farmers not only eliminate waste but also ensure an overall increase in the productivity of the entire farming system.
• New integrated methods include improved farming technologies such as integrated nutrient management, site-specific nutrient management, conservation technology, use of bio-fertilizers, crop rotation, zero tillage, and the use of agricultural systems which help farmers track their activities to production capacity and profitability of farms as well as entire farms.
• The basic principle for an integrated farming system is to enhance ecological diversity: By selecting the appropriate crop method with crop rotation, crop mixing, and intercropping so that there is less competition for water, nutrition, and space and adopting environmentally friendly methods.

By using a multi-story layout so that the total available area can be use defectively and has a high level of interaction between biological and abiotic components.

Objectives of Integrated Farming System

The overall objective of integrated farming systems is to evolve technically feasible and economically viable farming system models by integrating cropping with allied enterprises for irrigated, rain fed, hilly and coastal areas with a view to generate income and employment from the farm. The major objectives of integrated farming systems can be listed as below (CARDI, 2010; Behera, 2013).

• Maximization of yield of all component enterprises to provide steady and stable income at higher levels.
• Rejuvenation/amelioration of system’s productivity and achieve agro-ecological equilibrium.
• Control the buildup of insect-pests, diseases and weed population through natural cropping system management and keep them at low level of intensity.
• Reduction in the use of chemical fertilizers and other harmful agro-chemicals and pesticides to provide pollution free, healthy produce and environment to the society at large.
• Utilization and conservation of available resources and effective recycling of farm residues within system and to maintain sustainable production system without damaging resources/environment.

Different Livestock Based Integrated Farming System

Livestock based integrated farming system is one of the rising agriculture systems for the northeastern region. The practice of this type of farming system has been continued in this region in a traditional way from time immemorial. The basic principles of the farming system are productive recycling of farm wastes. Different subsystems work together in integrated farming system resulting in a greater total productivity than the sum of their individual production. Fish-Livestock along with Livestock-Crop farming is the major concept in Livestock based integrated farming system.

Fish – livestock farming systems

Fish- livestock farming systems are recognized as highly assured technology where predetermined quantum of livestock waste obtained by rearing the live stock in the pond area is applied in pond to raise the fish crop without any other additional supply of nutrients (FAO, 2000). The main potential linkages between livestock and fish production concern use of nutrients, particularly reuse of livestock manures for fish production. The term nutrients mainly refer to elements such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) which functions as fertilizers to stimulate natural food webs rather than conventional livestock nutrition usage such as feed ingredients. Both production and processing of livestock generate by-products that can be used for aquaculture. Direct use of livestock production wastes is the most widespread and conventionally recognized type of integrated farming. Production wastes include manure, urine and spilled feed; and they may be used as fresh inputs or be processed in some way before use. Based on the type of livestock used for integration there are many combinations in livestock-fish systems. Some of the combination are listed and discussed below.

Cattle-Fish Culture

Manuring of fish pond by using cow dung is one of the common practices all-over the world (Gebru, 2021). A healthy cow excretes over 4,000-5,000 kg dung, 3,500-4,000 lt urine on an annual basis. Manuring with cow dung, which is rich in nutrients results in increase of natural food organism and bacteria in fishpond. A unit of 5-6 cows can provide adequate manure for 1 ha of pond. In addition to 9,000 kg of milk, about 3,000-4,000 kg fish/ha/year can also be harvested with such integration.

Cowshed should be built close to fishpond to simplify handling of cow manure. A cow requires about 7,000-8,000 kg of green grass annually. Grass carp utilizes the left over grasses, which are about 2,500 kg. Fish also utilize the fine feed which consists of grains wasted by cows. In place of raw cow dung, biogas slurry could be used with equally good production. Twenty to thirty thousand kg of biogas slurry are recycled in 1 ha water area to get over 4000 kg of fish without feed or any fertilizer application.

Pig-Fish system

The waste produced by 30-40 pigs is equivalent to 1 tonne of ammonium sulphate. Exotic breeds like White Yorkshire, Landrace and Hampshire are reared in pig-sty near the fish pond. Depending on the size of the fishponds and their manure requirements, such a system can either be built on the bund dividing two fishponds or on the dry-side of the bund. Pigsties, however, may also be constructed in a nearby place where the urine and dung of pigs are first allowed to the oxidation tanks (digestion chambers) of biogas plants for the production of methane for household use (Bhagawati, et al., 2020). The liquid manure (slurry) is then discharged into the fishponds through small ditches running through pond bunds. Alternately, the pig manure may be heaped in localized places of fishponds or may be applied in fishponds by dissolving in water.

Pig dung contains more than 70 percent digestible feed for fish. The undigested solids present in the pig dung also serve as direct food source to tilapia and common carp. A density of 40 pigs has been found to be enough to fertilize a fish pond of one hectare area. The optimum dose of pig manure per hectare has been estimated as five tonnes for a culture period of one year. Fish like grass carp, silver carp and common carp (1:2:1) are suitable for integration with pigs.

Poultry-Fish Culture

Poultry raising for meat (broilers) or eggs (layers) can be integrated with fish culture to reduce costs on fertilizers and feeds in fish culture and maximize benefits. Poultry can be raised over or adjacent to the ponds and the poultry excreta recycled to fertilize the fishponds. Poultry housing, when constructed above the water level using bamboo poles would fertilize fishponds directly. In fish poultry integration, birds housed under intensive system are considered best. Birds are kept in confinement with no access to outside. Deep litter is well suited for this type of farming. About 6-8 cm thick layer prepared from chopped straw, dry leaves, saw dust or groundnut shell is sufficient.

Poultry dung in the form of fully built up dip litter contains: 3% nitrogen, 2% phosphate and 2% potash, therefore it acts as a good fertilizer which helps in producing fish feed i.e. phytoplankton and zooplankton in fish pond. So application of extra fertilizer to fish pond for raising fish is not needed. This cuts the cost of fish production by 60%. In one year 25-30 birds can produce 1 tonne dip litter and based on that it is found that 500-600 birds are enough to fertilize 1 ha water spread area for good fish production. Daily at the rate of 50 kg/ha water spread area poultry dung is applied to the fish pond. When phytoplanktonic bloom is seen over the surface water of fish pond then application of poultry dung to the pond should immediately be suspended. Poultry-fish integration also maximizes the use of space; saves labour in transporting manure to the ponds and the poultry house is more hygienic and water needed for poultry husbandry practice can get from fish pond.

Duck-Fish Culture

The duck-fish integration system is usually employed by many farmers, in such areas, where the underground water table is usually good and standing water is available in the water-body, during most parts of the year. As a major advantage of the Integrated Duck – fish farming, not only it increases fish production but also cuts down the cost of fish culture operations considerably. A fish-pond being a semi-closed biological system with several aquatic animals and plants provides excellent disease-free environment for ducks. In return ducks consume juvenile frogs, tadpoles and dragonfly, thus making a safe environment for fish. Duck dropping goes directly in pond, which in turn provides essential nutrients to stimulate growth of natural food. Where average cost of production in conventional poly-culture with supplemental feeding and inorganic fertilization was Rs. 2.93/kg in Eastern India researchers have recorded the cost of production nearing Rs. 1.61/kg from a duck-fish integrated farming system (Mishra, 2016)

It is highly profitable as it greatly enhances the animal protein production in terms of fish and duck per unit area. Ducks are known as living manuring machines. The duck dropping contain 25 per cent organic and 20 percent inorganic substances with a number of elements such as carbon, phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, calcium, etc. Hence, it forms a very good source of fertilizer in fish ponds for the production of fish food organisms. Besides manuring, ducks eradicate the unwanted insects, snails and their larvae which may be the vectors of fish pathogenic organisms and water-borne disease-causing organisms infecting human beings. Further, ducks also help in releasing nutrients from the soil of ponds, particularly when they agitate the shore areas of the pond.

Livestock-crop production system

An “integrated crop-livestock system” is a form of mixed production that utilizes crops and livestock in a way that they can complement one another through space and time. The backbone of an integrated system is the herd of ruminants (animals like sheep, goats or cattle), which graze a pasture to build up the soil. Eventually, sufficient soil organic matter builds up to the point where crops can be supported. Animal can also be used for farm operations and transport. While crop residues provide fodder for livestock and grain provides supplementary feed for productive animals (Hilimire, 2011).

Animals play key and multiple roles in the functioning of the farm, and not only because they provide livestock products (meat, milk, eggs, wool, and hides) or can be converted into prompt cash in times of need. Animals transform plant energy into useful work: animal power is used for ploughing, transport and in activities such as milling, logging, road construction, marketing, and water lifting for irrigation. Animals also provide manure and other types of animal waste. Animal excreta have two crucial roles in the overall sustainability of the system:

• Improving nutrient cycling: Excreta contain several nutrients (including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) and organic matter, which are important for maintaining soil structure and fertility. Through its use, production is increased while the risk of soil degradation is reduced.
• Providing energy: Excreta are the basis for the production of biogas and energy for household use (e.g. cooking, lighting) or for rural industries (e.g. powering mills and water pumps). Fuel in the form of biogas or dung cakes can replace charcoal and wood.

One key advantage of crop-livestock production systems is that livestock can be fed on crop residues and other products that would otherwise pose a major waste disposal problem. For example, livestock can be fed on straw, damaged fruits, grains and household wastes. Integration of livestock and crop allows nutrients to be recycled more effectively on the farm. Manure itself is a valuable fertilizer containing 8 kg of nitrogen, 4kg of phosphorus and 16 kg of potassium per tonne. Adding manure to the soil not only fertilizes it but also improves its structures and water retention capacity. It is also opined that where livestock are used to graze, the vegetation under plantations of coconut, oil palm and rubber, as in Malaysia, the cost of weed control can be dramatically reduced, sometimes by as much as 40 percent. In Colombia sheep are sometimes used to control weeds in sugarcane. Draught animal power is widely used for cultivation, transportation, water lifting and powering food processing equipment.

Empowerment of women through IFS

Women play a very important role in household management including agricultural operations. This is especially true for hilly and tribal areas. There is a vast scope to improve the household profitability by judiciously utilizing family labour using innovative practices and ensuring multiple uses of various household resources. This is possible through women‟s empowerment through location specific trainings and critical need based support. With the improvement in educational status in the years to come, the role of women in agriculture and management of household resources will be increasingly important. As such, feminization of agriculture in the long run is expected and developing women-centric farming system models will be a real challenge as men are migrating to rural non-farm sectors (ICAR, 2015).

Advantages of Integrated Farming System (Patra and Samal, 2018)

• Productivity: IFS provides an opportunity to increase economic yield per unit area per unit time by virtue of intensification of crop and allied enterprises especially for small and marginal farmers.
• Profitability: Cost of feed for livestock is about 65-75% of total cost of production; however use of waste material and their byproduct reduces the cost of production, conversely it is same for the crop production as fertilizer requirement for crop is made available from animal excreta no extra fertilizer is required to purchase from out side farm as a result the benefit cost ratio increases and purchasing power of farmers improves thereby.
• Sustainability: In IFS, subsystem of one waste material or byproduct works as an input for the other subsystem and their byproduct or inputs are organic in nature thus providing an opportunity to sustain the potentiality of production base for much longer periods as compare to monoculture farming system.
• Balanced Food: All the nutrient requirements of human are not exclusively found in single food,to meet such requirement different food staffs have to be consumed by farmers. Such requirement can be fulfilled by adopting IFS at farmer level, enabling different sources of nutrition.
• Environmental Safety: In IFS waste materials are effectively recycled by linking appropriate components, thus minimize environment pollution.
• Recycling: Effective recycling of product, byproducts and waste material in IFS is the corner stone behind the sustainability of farming system under resource poor condition in rural area.
• Income Rounds the year: Due to interaction of enterprises with crops, eggs, meat and milk, provides flow of money round the year amongst farming community.
• Saving Energy: Cattle are used as a medium of transportation in rural area more over cow dung is used as such a burning material for cooking purpose or utilized to generate biogas thereby reducing the dependency on petrol/diesel and fossil fuel respectively, taping the available source within the farming system, to conserve energy.
• Meeting Fodder crisis: Byproduct and waste material of crop are effectively utilized as a fodder for livestock (Ruminants) and product like grain, maize are used as feed for monogastric animal (pig and poultry).
• Employment Generation: Combining crop with livestock enterprises would increase the labour requirement significantly and would help in reducing the problems of under employment to a great extent IFS provide enough scope to employ family labour round the year.

Limitations of Livestock Based Integrated Farming System

• A lower digestibility and protein content of crop residues leads to lower nutritional benefits. It is technically possible to increase the structure and functionality of crop residues by physical or chemical treatment, but it is not feasible for small, poor farmers because it requires machinery and chemicals that are expensive or not readily available.
• Crop residues have the primary role of regenerating soil; however they are neglected too often or misapplied.
• Intensive recycling can cause nutrient losses.
• If manure fertilizer use efficiency cannot be improved, production and transportation costs will raise, as well as the surpluses lost to the environment.
• Chemical fertilizers are preferred over manures for their quicker and easier uses.
• Manure transportation is an important factor in manure use because mixed farms tend to use more manure in comparison to crop farms. Investments are required to improve the intake and digestion of crop residues.

Opportunities of Livestock Based Integrated Farming System

• Intensification of agriculture which is currently occurring in most farming systems favors’ livestock based integration.
• Poor soil fertility, unavailability or increases in prices of fertilizers, and labour shortages, have forced farmers to rely on alternatives such as manure and traction.
• Farmers can grow crop in the wet season and engage in livestock enterprises in the dry season.
• Livestock enterprises are more lucrative than crop farming so it is advantageous to integrate livestock into farm activities.
• Many indigenous, emerging and developed technologies are available to support sustainable crop–livestock integration.

Conclusion

In recent years, food security, livelihood security, water security as well as natural resources conservation and environment protection have emerged as major issues worldwide, Developing countries struggling to deal with these issues and also have to contend with the dual burden of climate change and globalization. It has been accepted by everyone across the globe that sustainable development is the only way to promote rational utilization of resources and environmental protection without hampering economic growth. Livestock Based Integrated Farming System is the most promising option for small and marginal farmers. It not only enhances the nutritional and economic status of farm families but also increases employment opportunities and makes optimal use of farm resources. There are many models developed by researchers in different corners of our country but there is immense need of proper documentation and dissemination for the betterment of poor and prosperity of our country both in rural and urban sector.

 

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