Integrating veterinary and poultry component with rice-based farming system for effective utilization of resources, environmental restoration and profitability

Abstract

Dependence on crop alone is like a gamble where the farmer’s face the problem of crop failure or poor returns. Integrating veterinary components into rice based cropping system seems to provide farmers a risk-free alternative that will enahcne their income and productivity while optimizing resource use for small and marginal farmers. Hence, a field investigaion was conducted to with the objective of effect utilization of resource by integrating veterinary component with rice cropping system for enhancing the productivity and profitability. The field study involves conventional farming system compared with integrated farming system. In regular system farming system rice - rice - pulses cropping system was followed in 4000 m2 area. Under integrated farming system, rice - rice - pulses (2000 m2), fish pond (800 m2), veterinary component (1100 m2) and animal fodder (100 m2) were integrated. In an integrated farming system, the waste from one component is used as a resource for another.In comparison to a typical farming system, integrating veterinary, poultry, and fish production with rice crop yielded higher net returns, gross returns, and benefit cost ratios. It is recommended that dependence of crop alone will give less return, whereas integrating farming system would reduce the cost of input for crop and result in higher profitability.