Components of Farming Systems
In the integrated farming system, it is always emphasized to combine cropping with other enterprises/ activities, many enterprises are available and these includes cattle maintenance sheep or goat rearing, poultry, piggery, rabbit rearing, bee keeping etc.Any one or more can be combined with the cropping.
Cattle Maintenance:
1) Draft breeds,
2) Dairy breeds,
3) Dual purpose,
4) Exotic breeds.
1. Buffaloes: Important dairy breeds of buffalo are murrah, mehsana, zefarabadi, Godavari.
Feeding: Cattle feed generally contains fibrous coarse low nutrient straw material. Roughage is basic for cattle ration and includes legumes non- legume hays, straw and silage of legume and grasses. Per day requirement @ 1 kg concentrate per 2 lit of milk, green fodder (20- 30 kg), straw 5-7 kg & water – 32 lit.
2. Sheep Rearing: Sheep are well adapted to many areas. They are excellent gleaners and make use of much of waste feed. Consume roughage, converting a relative cheap food into a good cash product. Housing not expensive.
Feeding: 1-2 kg of leguminous hay per day. Protein supplied through concentrate as groundnut cake.
3. Goat Rearing: In India, activity of goat rearing under different environments. The activity is also associated with different systems such as crop or animal based, single animal or mixed herd small or large scale. Goat is mainly reared foe meat, milk hide and skin meat preferred in India, A goat on hoof fetches a better price than a sheep on hoof.
Feeding: per head nutrients requirement to goat is low. Hence they are suitable for resources poor small farmers with marginal grazing lands they eat plants and leaves of tree, which any other animals not touch. Goat eats 4- 5 times that of body weight concentrate of maize, groundnut cake etc. and clean and fresh water.
4. Poultry: poultry is one of the fatest growing food industries in the world. Poultry meat accounts for about 27% off total meat consumed world wide poultry industry in India is relatively a new agricultural industry. Egg production may reach up to 5000 crores and broiler meat production 330 thousand tones ( by 2000) the average global consumption is 120 eggs per person/ year and in India it is only 32- 33 eggs per capita/ year. To meet the nutritional requirement the per capita consumption estimated at 180 eggs 9 kg meat/ year.
Feed: The feed conservation efficiency of the bird is superior to other animals. About 60 – 70 % of the total expenditure on poultry farming is spent on the poultry feed. Hence, use of cheap and efficient ration will give maximum profit cereals- maize, barley, oats, wheat, rice – broken mineral/ salt – limestone, salt manganese.
5. Duck rearing: Ducks account for about 7 % of the poultry population in India. They are popular in cereal and logged states like west Bengal. Orissa, A.P, T. Nadu, they have production potential of about 130- 140 eggs/ bird/ year. These can rear in marshy riverside Westland. Duck farming can be a better alternative.
Feeding: Eating fallen grains in harvested paddy fields, small fishes and other aquatic materials. A variety of crop residues and insects in the farm.
6. Turkey rearing: Turkey is a robust bird and can be reared in humid tropics. It actively feed on a variety of crop residues and insects in the farm.
7. Piggery: pigs are maintained for production of pork.
8. Rabbit Rearing: In India is of recent origin though hunting of wild rabbits for meat is not uncommon. Rabbit can be easily reared with relatively less concentrate feed with high production rate.
9. Bee Keeping: Bee keeping is one of the most important agro- based industries which do not required any raw material like other industries. Nectar and pollen from flower are the raw material, which available in plenty in nature. Bee keeping can be started with a single colony.
Honey collection: Honey should have good quality. Qualities such as aroma, color, consistency and floral sources are important. Honey is an excellent energy food with an average of about 3500 calories per kg. it is directly absorbed into the human blood stream requiring no digestion.
10. Aquaculture: Ponds serve as domestic requirement of water, supplementary irrigation to crop and pisciculture with the traditional management, farmer obtain hardly 300 – 400 of wild and culture fish/ ha/ year. However, polyfish culture with the stocking density of 7500 fingerlings and supplementary feeding will boost the total biomass production.
Species: cattle, Rohu, common carp, silver carp, and grass carp (feed on aquatic plants).
Management: Pond depth – 1.5- 2.0 m, water should be slightly alkaline, PH- 7.5- 8.5. If the PH less than 6.5, it can be adjusted with addition of lime, higher PH (> 8.5) can be reduced with addition of Gypsum. Application of fresh dung may also reduce high PH in the water.
The fish are to be nourished with supplementary feeding with rice bran and oilseed cakes.
This will enable faster growth and better yield. Each variety of crops stocked to 500 fingerlings with the total of 5000- 8000/ ha. This gives 2000 to 5000 kg/ha of fish annually.
11. Sericulture: Definition: the keeping of silk moths and their larvae for the production of silk or Seri culture is defined as a practice of combining mulberry cultivation; silkworm rearing and silk reeling. Sericulture is a recognized practice in India. The total area under mulberry is 240 thousand ha in the country. It plays an important role in in socio- economic development of rural poor in some areas. Climate condition favorable for mulberry and rearing of silk worms throughout the year. Karnataka is the major silk producing state in India (temp 21 to 30 o C), in Kashmir climate suit from May to October.
Moriculture: Cultivation of mulberry plants is called as Moriculture. The crop yield well for 12 years. Yield of mulberry leaves is 30- 40 t/ ha/ year.
Rearing: eggs are allowed to be laid over a cardboard. In Bamboo tray rice husk is spread. Tender chopped mulberry leaves are added to the tray. The hatched out larvae are transferred to the leaves it is important to change the leaves every 2 – 3 hours during the first 2 – 3 days. The cocoon constructed with silk. The cocoons required for further rearing are kept separately and moths are allowed to emerge from them.
12. Mushroom Cultivation: Mushroom is an edible fungi great diversity in shape, size and colour. Essentially mushroom is a vegetable that is a cultivated that is cultivated in protected farms in a highly sanitized atmosphere; mushroom contains 90 % moisture with in quality protein, fairly good source of vitamin C and B complex. It is rich source of mineral like ca, P, K & Cu. They contain less of fat and CHO and are considered good for diabetic and blood pressure patients.
Varieties: 1) Oyster mushroom 2)n Paddy straw mushroom- volvarilla volvacea 3) White button mushroom- Agaricus gisporus ( var, A-11, Horst V3).
13. Biogas Plant: Biogas is a clean, unpolluted and cheap source of energy, which can be obtained by a simple mechanism and little investment. The gas is generated from the cow dung during anaerobic decomposition. Biogas generation is a complex bio- chemical process, celluloytic material are broken down in methane and Co2 by different group of micro- organism. IT can be used for cooking purpose, buring lamps, etc. Biogas near to kitchen & cattle shed to reduce cost of gas transfer and cow dung transport, sunlight is important for temperature.
Biogas slurry: slurry is obtained after the production of biogas. It is enriched manure; another positive aspect of this manure is that even after weeks of exposure to the atmosphere the slurry does not attract fleas and worms. Dry slurry contains about 1.8 % N, 1.10 %P& 1.50% K.