Quantification of Linkages within the Prevailing Integrated Farming Systems of Punjab

With the emerging problems owing to mono-cropping of paddy-wheat, diversification and integrated farming systems (IFS) is the need of the hour in Punjab, government of state is making efforts through earmarking budgetary allowances and several remunerative schemes to encourage farmers for its adoption. Hence, this study was taken upto understand the dynamics and the level of integration between the sub-components of widely adopted IFS models of Punjab. More than 80 percent of the farmers adopt the crop + dairy model in the study area therefore this prevalent model was studied as IFS-I model along with its variants of crop + dairy + mushroom (IFS-II) and crop + dairy + beekeeping (IFS-III) models. Leontief’s input-output model (1966) were used to quantify the inter component relationship by considering crop, dairy, mushroom, beekeeping, household, and the market as separate sectors of the farming economy. It was concluded that component enterprises, depended upon each other for input supplies and disposal of output. Forward linkage from crop to dairy enterprise was stronger than backward linkage in all the IFS models and the dairy enterprise was self-sufficient in providing inputs for itself from within the system.