Why is diversified agriculture important?
Diversified agriculture enhances ecosystem services and maintain yields. Increasing diversity in crop production systems benefits ecosystem services and biodiversity without compromising crop yields.
What is mean by agricultural diversification Why is agricultural diversification essential for rural development in India?
Agricultural diversification is a system of farming that encourages production of a variety of plant and animals and their products. Non-farm employment provides greater income stability, economies of size also reduces uncertainty of business. It involves maximum number of persons as it is labour intensive in nature.
What is the concept of diversification of agriculture?
In the agricultural context, diversification can be regarded as the re-allocation of some of a farm’s productive resources, such as land, capital, farm equipment and labour to other products and, particularly in richer countries, to non-farming activities such as restaurants and shops.
What are the two important aspects of diversification of agricultural activity explain?
There are two ways to achieve diversification. The first aspect refers to changing the cropping patterns which further means a change in the proportion of areas dedicated to the cultivation of various crops. The second aspect focuses on the shift of workforce to other related activities (poultry, husbandry etc.)
How does organic farming help sustainable development?
Organic agriculture is an efficient and promising agricultural approach for environmental sustainability as it provides yield stability, improves soil health, no environmental concerns, organic food and reduction in the use of synthesized fertilizers.
Which of the following helps in Agriculture Diversification?
Here, agricultural diversification is supported by a change in technology or consumer demand, trade or government policy, and by transportation, irrigation, and other developments of infrastructure.
Which of the following can promote sustainable development of agriculture?
I think the answer is Organic farming.
How does livelihood diversification help?
Both agricultural and livelihood diversification are ways of managing climate risk. Since climate shocks affect different farming and nonfarming activities differently, diversification can potentially reduce the impact of these shocks on income.
What is agricultural diversification?
Agricultural diversification means adding plant varieties and species, or animal breeds, to farms or farming communities. Livelihood diversification means farming households engaging in multiple agricultural and nonagricultural activities.
What are the policy frameworks of government for rural infrastructure transport, irrigation, storage facilities, processing, and providing incentives to?
The policy frameworks of government for rural infrastructure transport, irrigation, storage facilities, processing, and providing incentives to the farmers encourages agricultural diversification (Singh et al., 2006; Behera et al., 2007; Ayyappan and Arunachalam, 2014 ).
Why is diversification important?
Diversification is an important means of climate change adaptation because it helps to spread the risk of climatic variability in damaging livelihoods. First, a distinction should be made between agricultural diversification and livelihood diversification (Thornton and Lipper, 2014 ).
How did the government support the production of palm oil?
The government also supported the production of palm oil by allowing the use of rubber replanting grants for planting oil palm.
Why is rice being diverted to less water intensive crops?
For example, in Tamil Nadu, rice lands are being diverted to less water-intensive crops because of the growing water scarcity. During 2000–13, rice area in Tamil Nadu decreased by more than 15%.
Why are vegetables important for agriculture?
Vegetables, fruits, and other species, including wild plants gathered for food, are often important for nutrition and dietary diversification, while multipurpose trees and other crops can contribute to agricultural diversification.
What is agricultural diversification?
Agricultural diversification is one of the essential components of economic growth. It is the stage where traditional agriculture is transformed into a dynamic and commercial sector by shifting the traditional agricultural product mix to high standard products, which has a high potential in stimulating production rate.
Why is diversification important in rural areas?
For rural people, diversification, or focusing on associate activity, is important because it gives them an opportunity to earn extra income and overcome poverty.
What is the role of fisheries in India?
Fisheries – Aquaculture, or fisheries, is an important part of food production that provides economic security to the millions of people besides livelihood support. In India, the total fish production contribution from inland sources is about 64% and 36% from the marine sector (sea and oceans).
How much of India’s GDP is horticulture?
In India, the horticulture sector contributes 6% of GDP and one-third of the agricultural output. You Might Also Like To Read: Types of Rural Credit. Agricultural Sector during the Independence. Agriculture Development in India.
What is the purpose of animal husbandry?
Animal husbandry – Most of the farmers use the mixed crop-livestock system to increase their standards of living and income. Animal husbandry is an agricultural branch that deals with the practices of farming, breeding, and the care of farm animals like cattle, dogs, sheep, and horses.
Why do people seek employment in the non-farm sector?
Answer: People seek employment in the non-farm sector, as agriculture is already overcrowded and cannot offer additional employment.
What is the term for the plantations of the garden crop?
Horticulture – It is agriculture that deals with the plantations of the garden crop, especially that of vegetables, fruits, flowers, tuber crops, species, and ornamental or medicinal plants. These plants provide food and nutrition besides providing employment.
How does diverse farming contribute to food security?
More diverse farming systems can contribute to household food security; however, the relationship is influenced by other factors , for example, the market orientation of a household, livestock ownership, nonagricultural employment opportunities, and available land resources.
What is farming diversity?
Farming diversity is the number of crops grown and the number of overall farming activities including livestock husbandry in a given year, irrespective of the economic importance of each activity. We calculate the overall farming diversity per household and the farming diversity per ha cropland and later discuss differences in these two measures. The individual crop and livestock types distinguished in each survey are different, reflecting the farming systems studied, but broad categories, for example, large and small ruminants, nonruminants, cash crops, and food crops, are covered equally well. Crop area information in the surveys considers that a household might own more than one plot or field but would usually only refer to the primary crop or land use. Hence, farming diversity needs to be understood as diversity across different plots or fields within 1 year not necessarily within. Further, farming diversity as defined here is different to agrobiodiversity in that we do not consider species that support food production indirectly, for example, soil organisms beneficial for soil fertility or insects, bacteria and fungi that control insect pests and diseases of plants and animals (Thrupp, 2000 ).
What is the rainfall zone of agriculture?
These analyses indicate that the vast majority of rainfed agricultural activity takes places in rainfall zones between 500 and 1,000 mm with a mean of 747 mm and with rainfall variability between 17% and 22%. This is the high diversity window with 43% of cropland and 25% of pastures located in this interval.
How does diversity affect food security?
Farming diversity is calculated by counting the number of crops grown and the number of livestock products shown as total count (a) and divide d by cropland (b, d ). Food availability as one dimension of food security is calculated as a ratio of energy available (sum of on-farm consumption of food crops, food purchased using money earned through on-farm, off-farm activities) and energy requirements of a household. While (a) shows the basic relationship between diversity and food availability, the other three plots show the relationship while also controlling for size of cropland (b), livestock ownership (c) and income from farm sales and off-farm activities (d). Please note that farm sizes can be very small, below 1 ha, so a maximum crop diversity of >30 can also relate to 10 crops grown on 0.3 ha. Boxplot widths are drawn proportional to the square roots of the number of households in each group. The red dashed line distinguishes households that meet their energy requirements (>1) from those that don’t (<1). Outliers beyond the extremes of the whiskers (median ± 1.5 × IQR) are not shown. Please see the boxplot statistics in Table S3
How have farmers in Africa adapted to climatic and other risks?
Farmers in Africa have long adapted to climatic and other risks by diversifying their farming activities. Using a multi-scale approach, we explore the relationship between farming diversity and food security and the diversification potential of African agriculture and its limits on the household and continental scale.
How to calculate food availability in Africa?
We calculate food availability for 28,361 households across Africa (Table 1) by dividing the food energy potentially available by the energy requirements of a household following the approach of Frelat et al. ( 2016 ). Available energy is calculated from on-farm produce and food purchases using off-farm income and sales of farm products. A food availability value higher than one means that the farm household can generate enough energy with their activities to feed the family while a value of less than one means that the farm household is likely to be food insecure. Although a simple indicator of food security, it has been shown to be well related to other indicators of food security status and diet diversity across systems in Africa (Hammond et al., 2017 ). We also calculate an alternative measure of food security—food self-sufficiency for which we exclude food bought from off-farm income and sold farm produce. In addition to the six household surveys originally used in Frelat et al. ( 2016 ), we added 10,195 households from the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study—Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS ISA), country programs for Ethiopia, Tanzania, Niger, and Uganda (World Bank, 2014 ). Four households were removed as outliers with food self-sufficiency ratios exceeding the standard deviation more than 10 times.
How is harvested area fractions transformed to total area in hectares?
The harvested area fractions reported in the M3-Crop data set were transformed to total area in hectares by multiplying with grid cell area. The livestock productivity data were converted to livestock production in kilogram. We excluded grid cells with more than 10% area equipped for irrigation (Siebert, Henrich, Frenken, & Burke, 2013) from the analysis to focus on rainfed agriculture solely. Areas of land cover classes, crop areas, and livestock production of all African land cells including Madagascar were summed up per rainfall class.
What was the pattern of development associated with the 1960s?
From the 1960s education and remittances combined with investment in agriculture and localnon-agricultural activities (which were more profitable than alternatives) in a pattern of developmentassociated with gradual increase in standards of living.
What is sustainable livelihood?
The term “Sustainable Livelihood” is used here to refer to a livelihood that can cope with andrecover from stresses and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in thefuture, while not undermining the natural resource base.In this study, Livelihood diversification refers to attempts by individuals and households to findnew ways to raise incomes and reduce environmental risk, which differ sharply by the degree offreedom of choice (to diversify or not), and the reversibility of the outcome. Livelihooddiversification includes both on- and off-farm activities which are undertaken to generate incomeadditional to that from the main household agricultural activities, via the production of otheragricultural and non-agricultural goods and services, the sale of waged labour, or self-employment insmall firms, and other strategies undertaken to spread risk; included in this are what has been termed’activity or environment diversification’ in agriculture (Carter 1997), or more radical migratorystrategies (Stark and Levhari, 1982).
Do rural people in Africa and Asia produce livestock?
A large and disparate literature, arising from a variety of disciplines, has confirmed that rural peoplein Africa and Asia do not normally specialise in livestock, crop or fish production to the totalexclusion of other income generating activities. Rather, a majority of rural producers havehistorically diversified their productive activities to encompass a range of other productive areas.Motivations for such diversification are multifarious, linked with wide range of possible activities,and associated with both positive and negative outcomes. This recognition has led many researchersto represent rural livelihoods as constructed from a portfolio of resources, or activities (Adams andMortimore 1997; Dercon and Krishnan 1996; Ellis 1996; Unni 1996).