The long-term impact of the integrated crop-livestock system on carbon emission, sustainability and livelihood security of small and medium farmers

Abstract

In India, 80 per cent of the farmers are small and marginal farmers. They primarily depend on agriculture and allied activities for their livelihood security. The rice-rice cropping system reduces farm income, declined soil fertility and other soil degradation problems. The farming system approach is a holistic tool to address the problems of mono-cropping through diversification that enhances farm income, production and employment. A field study was conducted during 2011–2018 to study the impact of the rice-based integrated crop-livestock system (ICLS) for profitability, carbon emission and sustainability. Recycling of resources and residues led to higher productivity (58.9 %) and net profit (48.5 %) over the initial year by adopting rice-based ICLS. This system had a net profit of $ 3097/year and generated 776 man T days/ha/year employments. In ICLS, the recyclable farm waste material of 28.98 tons is converted into organic manures of 16.03 tons and saves the fertilizer’s cost of $ 504 per year. It can be a sustainable model with a sustainable yield index (0.11) of for wet situations with less carbon-emitting and profitable.