This course is designed to provide an understanding of cropping and farming systems.This includes farm types and features; cropping and farming systems; concept of sustainability in cropping systems and farming systems, alley cropping, sequential cropping and intercropping, mechanism of yield advantage in intercropping systems; mixed cropping: yield advantages of mixed cropping compared with mono-cropping, especially inflow-input input cropping systems under various environmental and management conditions, factors affecting the competitive ability of different species in mixtures; multiple cropping - concept and needs, types, selection of crops and computation of indices; groforestry concepts- classification of agroforestry systems-spatial grouping and time sequence. Agroforestry systems in the pacific, benefits and limitations of agroforestry; atoll agriculture, countries with atolls; alley cropping - sustainable food cropping systems in South Pacific; dry land farming, constraints limiting crop production in dry land areas; Integrated farming system and alternate farming system, potential advantages and disadvantages; potential and necessity for dissemination of integrated farming, existing integrated farming systems ,present status of integrated farming; design criteria for integrated farming systems, different types of integrated farming systems; crop/livestock integration, crop/fish integration, livestock/fish integration and crop/livestock/fish integration.
- Teacher: Hirdesh Sachan