Climate smart crop-livestock integrated farming as a sustainable agricultural strategy for humid tropical islands

ABSTRACT

Climate change and its impacts on agriculture are relatively well documented at the global and regional levels, while adaptation measures to sustain food production are mostly location specific. Such measures integrated into a production system as a farming practice will become robust based on its performance at smallholder farms. Therefore, a long-term (2011-2018) study was undertaken to evaluate these practices in a crop-livestock integrated farming system (IFS) approach as a climate-smart agricultural (CSA) strategy for enhancing agricultural production on a humid tropical island. The results showed a significant increase in on-farm productivity from 2.8 t ha⁻¹ in 2011–35.6 t ha⁻¹ in 2018 and net returns from USD 359 to more than 3500 ha⁻¹ due to the adoption of CSA practices. Most importantly the study found increase in the sustainability index (0.89) by the adoption of CSA practices such as crop and enterprise diversification and land manipulation. The climate smartness of these practices was witnessed in reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and expanded carbon sink that resulted in a mitigation benefit of 5.40 Mg CO₂eq ha⁻¹yr⁻¹. CSA practices such as crop diversification through raised beds, enterprise diversification, crop rotation, green manuring, in-situ rainwater harvesting, and contingency cropping significantly contributed to enhancing the production of crop-livestock IFS. Crop residue mulching, agro-forestry and organic waste recycling contributed for enlarging the C sink and minimizing net GHG emissions. Based on these findings, we demonstrated that a crop-livestock IFS was the best climate-smart strategy to enhance the productivity and food security of smallholder farmers in a sustainable way against the consequences of climate change and to increase the mitigating potential through carbon stocking.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• smallholder farming
• diversification
• adaptation and resilience
• sustainability

Additional information

Notes on contributors

T. P. Swarnam

Dr T. P. Swarnam is working as Head, Division of Natural Resource Management, ICAR-CIARI, Port Blair, India. She has more than 20 years of research experience in island ecosystem, integrated farming system, tribal farming and resource management. Her research interests are organic farming systems, waste recycling, organic novel products, valorisation and climate smart agriculture.

A. Velmurugan

Dr A. Velmurugan is specialized in soil science and resource management. He has worked on soil resource assessment, land degradation management, island and coastal ecosystem, climate change and adaptation, biogeochemical cycles and natural resource management using remote sensing and GIS. Currently he is engaged in research management at Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, India.

T. Subramani

T. Subramani is an agronomist, specialized in water management and working in ICAR-CIARI, Port Blair. He has been engaged in farming system studies in islands, nutrient management of high value crops, water management and stress agronomy.

N. Ravisankar

N. Ravisankar is an agronomist, engaged in integrated farming system research. He has rich experience in coordinating and upscaling of IFS and organic production systems. Currently serving as Project coordinator of AICRP – IFS.

N. Subash

N. Subash is specialised in agricultural meteorology, climate change impact on farming system and simulation modelling. He was involved in integrated farming system research and coordination of network programmes.

A. S. Pawar

A. S. Pawar has been actively involved in integrated farming system research for more than 25 years. He also served as Director, ICAR- Indian Institute of Farming System Research, Modipuram, India. He was engaged in research coordination and management.

P. Perumal

P. Perumal is a livestock management specialist. He has been involved in livestock management under stressful conditions and reproduction studies. He has rich experience in animal production under island condition.

I. Jaisankar

I. Jaisankar, is agroforestry specialist, engaged in multipurpose tree production, silvi-pastoral system, biodiversity conservation and bioprospecting under island ecosystem.

S. Dam Roy

S. Damroy has been engaged in fisheries production, conservation and technology generation. His main interest was enhancing fisheries production both marine and fresh water fisheries. He also served as Director, ICAR- Central Island Agricultural Research Institute, Port Blair, India.