Farming System

DR. MUSHTAQ AHMAD SHAH

Farm: Farm is an area of land and its buildings which is used for growing
crops and rearing animals. It is devoted primarily to agricultural
processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops. It
is the basic facility in food production.
System: A system is a set of inter-related, interacting and interdependent
elements acting together for a common purpose and capable of reacting
as a whole to external stimuli. It is unaffected by its own output and it has
external boundaries based on all significant feed backs.
Farming System:
Farming system is an approach for developing farm- household systems,
built on the principles of productivity, profitability, stability and
sustainability.
The farming system approach emphasizes understanding of farm
household, community inter linkages, reviews constraints and assesses
potentials. And it combines improvements desired from better
technology.
Farming System: Concept
A farm is a system in that it has INPUTS, PROCESSES, OUTPUTS and
FEEDBACK .
Depending on the type of farming e.g., commercial/subsistence, the
type and amount of inputs, processes and outputs will vary.
Income through arable farming alone is insufficient for bulk of the
marginal farmer
The other activities such as dairy, poultry,
sericulture, apiculture, fisheries etc. assume critical importance in
supplementing their farm income.
Farming System - Concept
Any farm can be viewed as a system, with INPUTS, PROCESSES,
OUTPUTS and FEEDBACK.
INPUTS are the factors that a farm needs to work. Inputs can be divided
into two groups.
Physical inputs are naturally occurring things such as water, raw
materials and the land. or Cultural inputs are things like money,
labour, and skills.
PROCESSES are the actions within the farm that allow the inputs to turn
into outputs. Processes could include things such as milking, harvesting
and spraying.
OUTPUTS can be negative or positive. Negative outputs include waste
products and soil erosion. The positive outputs are the finished
products, such as wheat, seeds, meat, milk, and eggs, and the money
gained from the sale of those products.
FEEDBACK is what is put back into the system. The main two examples
of this are money, from the sale of the outputs, and knowledge, gained
from the whole manufacturing process. This knowledge could then be
used to make the production better or improve the efficiency of the
processes.
Which of this statement are correct?
A. Agriculture economic may be taken as the branch of both of
agriculture and economics
B. Agriculture economic is more intimately related to economics then
to agriculture
C. Agricultural economics is nothing but application of economic
principles to agriculture
D. all of these
Opportunity cost is:
A. Cost of supplementary enterprise
B. Cost of next best alternative foregone
C. Cost of cultivation
D. Cost of production
Optimizing the use of farm resources on an individual farm level. It is a:
A. Farm management
B. Production economics
C. Agricultural marketing
D. Macro economics
Que: As per the census 2011, what percentage of total employment is
engaged in agriculture?
A) 48.7%
B) 54.6%
C)66.6%
D) 75.0%
• Subsistence Farming System
• Commercial Farming System
• Collective Farming System
• Co-operative Farming System
• State Farming System
• Alternative Farming System
1. Organic Farming System
Producing more , This excess in outputs is sold for profit.
Commercial farms are often involve large tracts of land. An example
would be the large wheat farms of the prairies.
Commercial farms are capital intensive, meaning they use more money
and machinery than humans.
Subsistence Farming
 Farms that are operated to meet the needs of
the owners with little or no extra produced.
 Subsistence farms usually involve small tracts of
land. An example would be a backyard garden.
 Subsistence farms are labour intensive. They
use people more than money or machinery
(capital).
Features of Subsistence Farming
 The whole family works on the farm
 Most of the work is done manually
 The farms are small
 Tradition methods of farming are followed
 Yield is not very high
 Most of the yield is consumed by the
family with very little surplus for the family
Subsistence Farming
Source: https://
www.slideshare.net/agriculturalchemistry/organic-farming-prospects-and- constraints?
Collective Farming
• Farms are owned and managed jointly by a group of individuals
forming a society. There are three main types of collective farming:
• Where there is collective ownership of land but cultivation is done
individually.
• Where there is common housing and messing besides collective
farming.
• Where there is an irrevocable transfer of land to the society and
cultivation is carried on by joint management.
Co-operative Farming System

Co-operative farming denotes a system of farming in

which all agricultural operations are carried on jointly by
farmers on voluntary basis.

In this type of farming every individual/peasant retains

one’s right on land.
For the sake of cultivation, the land is pooled and
treated as one unit.
Thus it is cultivated jointly under the direction of an
elected society.
• Co-operative Joint Farming : pooling of land of
small owners into one unit.
The ownership rights remain with the land holder,
profits distributed among the land holders based on
their share of land and wages paid according to the
work done by the farmers .
It is not much popular in India due to conservative
nature of the farmers.
Co-operative Better Farming
This form of society is organized to improve the methods of
agriculture without any pooling of the land.
Ownership are personal.
Seeds, fertilizer, irrigation, storage facilities, joint sowing ,
harvesting operations and marketing of produce are provided
by the society.
These societies are not much popular in India.
State Farming:
This farming system is somewhat similar to the commercial
farming or capitalistic farming.

The only difference is with regard to the ownership of the

farming.

Where as in case of a commercial farm the ownership of the

farm lies with a joint company (or in some cases with a land
lord), in case of state farming, the state itself is the owner of the
farm.

The hired managers have the decision making power with

regard to production and the hired workers work on the farm.
Collective Farms, Commune Farms in China

Collectives were cooperative organizations in which

farmers joined together to collectively raise crops on
land worked in common.

The farmers were paid in food (grain, vegetables, milk

and meat) and money earned by the collective.
Sometimes the term collective farm and commune was
used interchangeably.
Collective Farming System in China

• Authority for collective farms was determined by national laws or by rules drawn
up by the collective farm.

• Each collective was run by a chairman-manager and board made up of Communist

party loyalists theoretically elected by members of the collective.

• The collective farm chairman controlled all the resources and incomes.

• Collectives, state farms and communes were often very inefficient. They often had
armies of administrators, bookkeepers, veterinarians, dentists along with farmers
Collective Farming System in China

• Workers who followed the Soviet model worked in units

called brigades or links that were directed brigade or link
leaders.
• They often worked in teams of "labor-day" units, with
certain tasks regarded as requiring more labor than
others.
• A day of harvesting for example might be worth a
whole labor day while a day of milking might be worth
only half a day.
• Workers "earnings" were drawn against their future
"income" of labor days.
Benefits Of Collective Farming in China
Collectives provided education, housing and transportation. Workers
enjoyed a lifestyle similar to that of industrial workers, receiving paid
vacation and social benefits such as maternity leave, health insurance,
pensions and access to cultural events and continuing education.

Each farm family usually had a small plot of land on which it was allowed
to grow vegetables and raise animals. The food produced was supposed to
be for the family's consumption.

Sometimes extra food was sold for extra cash on the black market or
authorized private markets. Farmers who had access to urban markets coul
earn a considerable amount of money.
Benefits
People who lived in communes sometimes slept in dormitories and ate in mess
halls. But mostly they lived in one- or two-room houses or huts they sometimes
built themselves.

Until the 1970s these homes often lacked indoor plumbing and electricity. In
forested areas these were made of wood. In the steppes they were made of mud
brick.

In other places they were often made of concrete slabs or brick. They houses often
had thatch or sheet metal roofs.
Men only had two days off a week and women had three days off. Women were
given a month off after the gave birth. There were special tasks for children and old
people.

Students often studied at school for five hours in the morning and worked in the
afternoons. Measures were taken to keep people from migrating to the cities.
 working on a collective in the 1950s   

People working on collective land in 1950s

        Another Dazhai poster

Large pieces of land under collective farming in China.

Que: Which of the following factor/factors have created
demand pressure on protein items and eggs, meat and fish?
1. Substantial increase in minimum support price of
foodgrains.
2. Launch of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee scheme.
3. High growth rates in rural income/ wages.
The correct code is:
A) only 3
B) 1 and 2 option
3) 2 and 3 are correct
Que: Which of the following is not a drawback of Lewis Model?
A) The labour which migrates from rural sector to urban sector is
completely absorbed in urban sector.
B) There exists surplus labour whose marginal productivity is zero in
rural sector
C) None of the above
D) There exists two sector in an economy Traditional Sector and
Modern Sector
Que : Ranes Fei Model concludes by stating that
A) There is commercialisation of Agriculture in the third phase of Ranes
Fei Model Of Development.
B) There is no commercialisation of agriculture.
C) There is commercialisation of Industrial Sector.
D) None of the above
Que: Which of the following is a maor subscheme of agricultural
development during Twelfth Five Year Plan?
A) Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana
B) Horticulture Mission
C) Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India
D) Incresing the production of Coarse Cereals
Que: ISOPOM is related to:
A) quality control of food products
B) Share market''
C) Oilseeds, Pulses, and Oil Palm and Maize
D) Macro economic analysis
Que: Which of the following statement testifies that Indian Agriculture
is still heavily dependent on rainfall?
A) 60 percent of total food grains and oilseeds produced are grown in
the Kharif Season
B) 35 percent of total arable area is irrigated
C) Groundwater exploitation is impossible in Punjab And Haryana
D) A and B both