Vol. 18 No. 2
Economic impact of integrated farming systems on small and marginal farm households in lower Gangetic plains of West Bengal, India
Author(s): A. BISWAS AND S. CHATTERJEE
Abstract: Integrated farming system refers to agricultural systems that integrate livestock and crop production. So there is a mutual dependency between agricultural and livestock activities. It is a whole farm management system which aims to deliver more sustainable agriculture. According to a given site and situation, this process uses the best combination of modern tools and technologies with traditional practices. This study analyses the economic impact of integrated farming system over traditional farming practices in the lower Gangetic plains of West Bengal, India. Under integrated farming system, the overall gain in system productivity is 14.97%. The estimated change is attributable to the relative change in input use. Quantity of organic manure use (-7.42%) followed by bullock labour use (-5.03%) and hour of irrigation use (-2.52%) have played negatively significant role on crop productivity change. Whereas, the use of machine labour (4.69%) and human labour (4.23%) have shown positively significant effect on crop productivity change. The return per rupee of investment was found to be sufficiently higher for farm households following integrated farming system (1.60) compared to the traditional farm families (1.30).
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