Integrated farming system approaches for sustainable and climate resilient agriculture

A field experiment was conducted during 2022 and 2023 at the Agricultural Research cum Instructional Farm, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, Chhattisgarh under All India Coordinated Research Project on Integrated Farming System (IFS) to study the feasible IFS model for sustainable agriculture. The experiment was laid out in a split-plot design (SPD) with three replications. Rice (Oryza sativa L.) fallow systems recorded the lowest Rice Equivalent Yield (REY) which was improved with rice-sweet corn (Zea mays L.)-tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) + coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) cropping (13254 kg/ha) being significantly superior over remaining treatments. The rice-sweet corn-tomato + coriander system had 245.03%, 303.04%, 231.9% and 308.13% higher REY over rice- french bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)-groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.); rice-berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum L.)- sorghum [Sorghum bicolor ssp. bicolor (L.) Moench]; rice-garden pea (Pisum sativum L.)-cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] and rice-fallow systems, respectively. Water productivity was 1.96 kg/m3 in mushroom component as low energy use system among recycled manures, whereas poultry restored more soil organic carbon (0.77%) over initial (0.63%). The lower emission of green house gas (-126 kg CO2 equivalent) was in mushroom over rest of recycled manures while among cropping system, rice-sweet corn-tomato + coriander had lower emission of GHGs. The poultry recycled manure incurred 37355 MJ with output of 90475 MJ, however it also generated more employment (311 man-days). Gross return (₹21,681), net return (₹12,231) and employment generation (212 man-days) of rice-sweet corn-tomato+coriander was higher followed by rice-french bean-groundnut adopted for family nutrition.