Doubling Farm Income through Farming Systems in Western Maharashtra

The present study has looked into the comparative economics of various farming systems to ascertain the sustainability of most profitable system. The three widely adopted farming systems selected were (I) crops only, (II) crops + livestock, (III) crops + livestock + horticulture crops. A total of 180 sample farmers were selected from two districts, viz. Ahmednagar and Solapur and primary data were collected by survey method using a specially designed schedules for the year 2007–08. The employment generation was more in irrigated region as compared to rainfed region because crops such as sugarcane, wheat, fodder, etc. required more labour. Compared to farming system-I, the total income was double in farming system-II and four-fold in farming system-III. In farming system-I, the dependence was more on other than farm business activity. The farming systems-II and III in both irrigated and rainfed regions had sustainable farm income, but the farming system-I did not provide sustainable farm income. After adding income from other sources (wages, service, business, etc.), the farmers in farming system-I, had sustainable farm income, in both the regions.