What is Integrated Farming System ? How is it helpful to small and marginal farmers in India ?

Linked enterprises

IFS combines crops with dairy, poultry, fishery, horticulture, apiculture or agroforestry on one farm, so the waste of one becomes the input of another, as residue becomes fodder and dung becomes compost or biogas.

Local models

Apatani rice-fish terraces in Arunachal Pradesh and Kuttanad's rice-fish-duck farms show the idea, and ICAR's Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research, Modipuram, designs zone-specific models.

Income and costs

Milk, eggs and fish bring regular cash; livestock supplied about 15.5% of agricultural household income in the NSS Situation Assessment Survey (2019), and farm-made inputs cut costs.

Work, food and resilience

Family labour, especially women who run much of India's dairying, finds year-round work, the household eats the milk, eggs and fish it grows, and a failed monsoon no longer forces distress sale or migration.

Credit and convergence

Kisan Credit Cards for animal husbandry and fisheries should finance ponds and sheds, NMSA, PM Matsya Sampada and livestock schemes should converge at block level, and FPOs or Amul-style cooperatives should market small surpluses.