System Approach
Management practices are developed for individual crops and recommendation are made for individual crops. The residual effect of individual crops is not considered in crop based recommendation. In this resources are not utilized efficiently. To a farmer instead of crop, land is a unit and management practices should be for all crops that are to be grown on a piece of land.
Therefore system approach is applied to agriculture for efficient utilization of all resources maintains sustainability in production and obtaining higher net returns.
Farming is a dynamic biological and open system with human or social involvement. Being primarily biological with a high degree of dependence on weather variables and changing socio-political environments. Farming is inherently more risky than any other system.
Farming system can also mean different things to different people. To avoid ambiguity and confusion both terms farming and system should be clearly understood.
Farming is the process of harnessing solar energy in the form of economic plant and animal products and system implies a set of inter related practices/processes organized into a functional entity.
A system consists of several components which depend on each other. A system is defined as a set of elements or components that are inter- related and interacting among themselves.
System could be defined as an organized unitary whole composed of two or more inter dependent and interacting parts, components or subsystems delineated by identifiable boundary or its environmental super system.(singh,2001).