Researchers' manual for quantitative farming systems typologies applications using the R statistical tool

In India, contribution of small farmers to total farm output exceeds 50%, while they cultivate 44% of land. The holding sizes of marginal farms have decreased from the level of 0.40 ha in 1970-71 to 0.38 ha in 2010-11 and likely to reduce to the level of 0.32 ha with in this decade. By virtue of increased number of operational holdings (mainly due to fragmentation), their size is small but can be made profitable through interventions in farming system approach. In India, crop + livestock is the pre-dominant farming system and around 85 % of farm households practice it. Characterization of existing farming system in the farm household is essential for understanding the constraints and temporal dynamics of the system. On-Farm Research (OFR) component of AICRP on Integrated Farming Systems was working with large number of marginal and small farmers from 2011 in 31 districts covering 20 states to systematically characterize the existing farming systems, identify the constraints, make collective, compatible and convenient farm interventions and study the changes. A practical way of dealing with the complexity of farming systems variability and diversity is constructing typologies for distinction between farming systems. Quantitative typologies based on multivariate analyses allows to identify significant differences among farm types and use this as the basis for targeting interventions as well as design alternative farming systems for different types of farms. As part of the ICAR-IIFSR-CIMMYT collaboration, four quantitative farming systems analyses and training courses have been carried out for the OFR scientists working under AICRP on IFS in four zones (Eastern zone at ICAR-RC, Patna, Bihar; Western Zone at AU, Kota, Rajasthan; Southern zone at TNAU, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu and Northern zone at ICAR-IIFSR, Modipuram, Uttar Pradesh) during September, 2018 on “Quantitative farming systems typologies applications with the R statistical computing software”. This manual is the output of the workshop series and the document presented here is a key milestone for providing guidelines for constructing typologies in a step-wise approach to structure this process for its appropriation by young scientists. The editors are very much thankful to Dr T Mohapatra, Secretary DARE & DG ICAR; Dr Alagusundaram, DDG (NRM), Dr S Bhaskar, ADG (AAFCC) and Director, ICAR-IIFSR, Modipuram for their support and encouragement. We are also thankful to all the researchers from OFR centres of AICRP on IFS, CIMMYT, CGIAR Research Programs on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) & Wheat Agri-Food Systems (WHEAT) for collaboration in successful completion of the workshop series and support in bringing out the document.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Barba‐Escoto, L., Prusty, A.K., Lopez-Ridaura, S., Ravisankar, N., Jat, M.L., Tetarwal, J.P., Panwar, A.S.
Format:	Handbook biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	ICAR 2019
Subjects:	FARMING SYSTEMS, TYPOLOGY, STATISTICS, COMPUTER SOFTWARE,
Online Access:	https://hdl.handle.net/10883/20695
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