Evaluation of Crop – livestock silvipastoral farming system for dryland farmers of Western zone of Tamil Nadu

Introduction

An ever-increasing population put forths enormous demands on land resources. This is particularly acute in India, which has only 2.4 per cent of the world's geographical area but supports over 16 per cent of the world's population. Availability of quality fodder to the animals is the major impediment in scientific management of animals because India, having only 2.4% of the world's geographical area sustains 11% of the world's livestock population. It accounts for 55% of the world's buffalo population, 20% of the goat population and 16% of the cattle population. This has put unbearable burden on our natural vegetation (Nithya, 2020) [8] . The grazing activity is mainly dependent on the availability of the grazing resources from pastures and other grazing lands viz. forests, miscellaneous tree crops and groves, cultivable wastelands and fallow land. Such lands are about 40% of the total geographical area of the country. Vast area in the country (about 157 million ha) is classified under various types of degraded land where one or more limiting factors render the cultivation of crops economically unviable. The grazing intensity in the country is as high as 12.6 adult cattle units (ACU)/ha as against 0.8 ACU/ha in developed countries (Sankaran, 2020) [12] . Small ruminant farming heavily depends on traditional feeding methods including most common grazing lands (Ramana et al., 2000) [10] . Area under permanent pastures and grazing lands comprises a mere 3.3% of the total area, and has been declining steadily. The forest cover is to the tune of 21.54% of which more than 85% are protected and these lands used to be a major grazing area for livestock rearing communities (Roy et al., 2019) [11] . Sheep and goat keeping is an important livelihood activity for a large proportion of India's rural poor. Statistics revealed that in India 71 per cent of cattle, 63 per cent of buffaloes, 66 per cent of small ruminants, 70 per cent of pigs and 74 per cent of poultry are owned by resource-poor small, marginal farmers and landless labourers (Saravana Kumar and Sivakumar, 2011) [13] . Silvipasture is a system of integrating trees/shrubs with pasture has promise as an efficient system for higher and sustained availability of forage production and other secondary products like firewood, minor timber etc. Complementarity between tree and grass species grown in association is essential for the establishment and sustainability of silvipastoral systems on degraded marginal lands. Perennial grasses grown in such systems ensure rapid ground cover to check soil erosion and conserve moisture, besides providing fodder or industrial raw material for meeting the livelihood requirements of resource poor farmers (Kenneth J. Moore et al., 2015) [6] . In Tamil Nadu, area under permanent pastures and other grazing land is 0.11 lakh ha and fodder crops raised under dry land condition covers an area of 1.57 lakh ha (Velayudham, 2011) [16] . Among the 32 districts of Tamil Nadu, Tirupur, Namakal and Salem occupy 72.5 per cent of pasture area and hence considered as pasture hub of Tamil Nadu. Small ruminants are primarily maintained on natural pasturelands with insitu grazing and the productivity is constrained by the low quality of native grasses as well as the shortage of good quality forage, especially during the dry season. Silvipasture is another traditional land use system used for grazing livestock. Existing silvipastoral system is not able to provide nutritious and off-season fodder to animals. In this context, the study was taken to evaluate the improved silvipastoral farming system under dry land eco-system of Tamil Nadu.

Materials and Methods

A two-year on-farm field experiment was conducted to assess the performance of improved silvipastoral farming system under dryland tracts of Tamil Nadu.

Field location

Based on the survey, three farmers were selected for carrying out the field experiment. The experiments were conducted in farmer's field at Kilankattuvalasu, Kangeyam (location I), Pulliampatti, Mulanur (location II) and Kambaliampatti, Mulanur (location III) villages in Tiruppur district. The farms are situated at 11 o North latitude and 77 o East longitude and at an altitude of 427 m above the MSL. The normal climatic conditions of Tiruppur district (mean of 50 years) receives a mean annual rainfall of 650 mm in 37.5 rainy days, of which the Winter, Summer, South West and North East Monsoon records 16.09, 106.93, 267.19 and 259.56 mm respectively. The annual mean maximum temperature various from 30 0 to 38 0 C, while the mean minimum temperature varies from 19 0 C to 26 0 C. The district receives maximum amount of rain during the North East Monsoon followed by South West Monsoon (June -September).

Treatment details

Treatments consisted of five different silvipastoral farming systems viz., Acacia leucophloea + Cenchrus ciliaris (SFS1), Acacia leucophloea + Cenchrus ciliaris + Stylosanthes (SFS2), Acacia leucophloea + Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata (SFS3), Acacia leucophloea + fodder sorghum + Pillipesara(SFS4) and Acacia leucophloea + Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & fodder sorghum + Pillipesara(SFS5) each in 0.20 ha area. Six Mecheri sheep (5 ewes + 1 ram) and two buffaloes of local breed formed the animal component in the farming system experiment.

Sheep and Buffalo productivity and economics

The growth rate was recorded at monthly interval and expressed in kg/ month. The productivity of sheep was accounted by sale of lambs. Live body weight gain of sheep was observed in different silvipastoral system. The body weight of the sheep was recorded at the beginning of the experiment and once in a month throughout the year. The buffalo milk yield was recorded daily in litres /day and expressed as litres/ month.

System analysis

The results on the physical indicators viz., system productivity, profitability, employment and energy budgeting were presented as mean over three locations. Productivity in terms of green and dry fodder equivalent yields of fodder crops were recorded and expressed as t/ ha. Economic Parameters like cost of cultivation, gross return, net return and benefit cost ratio were worked out and expressed in Rs/ha. The cost of sheep was included in the total cost during first year. Gross return was calculated based on the productivity of sheep, buffalo and manure. Net return was calculated by deducting the cost of cultivation from gross return. Benefit cost ratio was worked out for each treatment by dividing the gross return by cost of cultivation. Number of labourers engaged per operation for different activities were recorded and given in man days/ha/year. Energy budgeting was done in terms of total energy input and total energy output for each component and combined for the silvipastoral farming system as a whole. Cultural energy utilized through inputs and energy produced as products by each crop were worked out and expressed in MJ. Energy efficiency was worked out taking into account the input and output energy for each treatment adopting the method given by Dazhong and Pimetal (1984) [1] .

Results and Discussion

Evaluation of silvipastoral farming system

In an area of one hectare, highest system productivity of 73,500 kg and 61,820 kg was registered in Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & fodder sorghum + pillipesara along with sheep (5+1) and buffalo (2 No.'s) during first year and second year, respectively. Among the different components, forage crops included in the silvipastoral farming system is the base activity. Contribution of forage crops to the total productivity was higher (25.5 per cent) during 2010-11 whereas the contribution to the total productivity was less (18.2 per cent) during first year in Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & fodder sorghum + Pillipesara. The reason attributed to the decreased productivity during first year may be due to lower rainfall. Though there was decreased productivity of crops, it was well compensated by the inclusion of sheep and buffalo, the system productivity was increased during first year than second year, due to the increased contribution from the buffalo unit (Table 1). Among the silvipastoral farming systems, highest productivity of forage crops was recorded in Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & fodder sorghum + Pillipesara due to the inclusion of legume crop along with grass and cereal in the system might have contributed for increased fodder yield. This was in line with the findings of Esther Shekinah (2002) [3] . A unit comprising of six sheep were maintained in the silvipastoral farming system. The contribution of the sheep to the silvipastoral farming system in terms of productivity and profitability was found to increase over years. Productivity of sheep was higher during second year, as a result of increased number of lambs. The improved silvipastoral farming system with Cenchrus setigerus, Stylosanthes hamata, fodder sorghum and Pillipesara had visible advantage over sole sorghum in supplying green and dry fodder for sheep. This might have supplied sufficient nutritional requirement for sheep which in turn reflected on the productivity of sheep. During summer, sheep were managed with preserved hay from sorghum. Mishra et al. (1997) [7] reported that comparative nutrient utilization pattern in sheep concluded that cenchrus based diets can be fed to sheeps for maintenance. During off season, Acacia pods were used as feed along with sorghum hay for sheep and buffalo. Average of 5 kg of dried Acacia pods tree -1 was obtained from Acacia trees every year. This might have supplied nutrient rich fodder to the livestock components during off season which in turn was reflected in system productivity (Hart, 1987) [5] . Higher net return (Rs. 32,485) was recorded in Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & Fodder sorghum + Pillipesara with sheep and buffalo. Higher productivity from diversified crops and milk yield from buffalo could contribute to increased net return in the above silvipastoral farming system. Further sheep component had given higher productivity by utilizing the grazing land for feeding and thereby it reduced the cost incurred on feed and fodder. Higher benefit cost ratio of 2.58 was recorded in Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & fodder sorghum + Pillipesara with sheep and buffalo and this system was found to be the best income generating silvipastoral farming system (Table 2). The profitability of buffalo enterprise in integrated farming system had been earlier reported by Esther Shekinah (2002) [3] . It is in conformity with the experimental results of Sivasankaran et al. (1995) [14] and Vairavan et al. (2000) [15] who have recorded higher productivity with increased economic contribution in dry land silvipastoral farming system. Higher gross return was obtained during first year owing to an increased live weight of sheep and by the sale of buffalo milk. Thus, crop-livestock compatibility would, therefore, influence the productivity and sustainability of integrated farming systems. Silvipastoral farming system with integration of livestock components provided higher employment opportunity for family labour. Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & fodder sorghum + Pillipesara with sheep and buffalo system gave higher labour employment. Sheep component generated employment of 57 and 41 man days/ ha/ year during first year and second year, respectively, whereas buffalo component generated employment opportunity of 137 and 79 man days/ ha/ year during first year and second year, respectively (Table 3). Livestock components created employment of 0.5 man day throughout the year, which can be effectively met with the available family labour. Such higher employment generation was reported in dry land integrated farming system earlier by Radhamani (2001) [9] . The generation of employment further makes the buffalo unit a positive linkage in silvipastoral farming system. Buffalo rearing provided assured, constant income on the day one itself and provided nutritional security to the family members. Family members contributed substantially for rearing the livestock components (Esther Shekinah et al., 2005). Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & fodder sorghum + Pillipesara with sheep and buffalo resulted in higher energy output of 261900 MJ with an energy efficiency of 49.9 per cent indicating the advantages of linked components. The energy value of milk and meat was 4.90 and 4.94 MJ as against 18 MJ for forage crops. In Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & fodder sorghum + Pillipesara system energy was effectively utilized as compared to other systems (Table 4). Energy analysis made by Han et al. (1985) [4] in China indicated the merit of animal crop integration in increasing the energy output and energy use efficiency. Integration of sheep and buffalo, Acacia leucophloea tree + fodder crops as component in the silvipastoral farming system would enhance the productivity, income of the farm, employment of family labour and energy use efficicncy.

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