Tuber Crop Based Farming System: An Approach to Boost up Livelihood of Marginal Farmers

A research programme was conducted in the farmers’ field at Dhenususa, a village in Jorhat district of Assam during 2013-14 to 2015-16. Initial data on land profile, production pattern and livelihood data of the village were taken. The field used by the farmer for rice mono-cropping (0.26 ha) was transformed to tuber crop based farming system model. Different components like tuber crops, floriculture, fruits, vegetables, fish, duck and dairy components were integrated for more income, employment and sustainability. A significant change occurred in rice equivalent yield, farm income and employment after intervention. The tuber crops contributed a major share in the farm income. Among the tuber crops the rice equivalent yield per unit area was maximum in the case of elephant foot yam (4.80 kg m -2 ) due to higher productivity and better price followed by sweet potato (4.27 kg m -2 ), greater yam (3.84 kg m -2 ) and taro (2.77 kg m -2 ). Among the kharif field crops sugarcane (chewing type) had higher productivity (3.55 kg m -2 ) in terms of rice equivalent yield. In other horticultural crops banana produced maximum rice equivalent yield (8.50 kg m -2 ) in the IFS system followed by flower (5.59 kg m -2 ), ginger (5.50 k gm -2 ), winter vegetables (4.66 kg m -2 ) and lemon(4.25 kg m -2 ). The rice equivalent yield could be increased up to 28.42 t ha -1 in a typical rice land from just 3.33 t ha -1 by converting the land into farming system model. This was about 8.5 times more than that of previous rice mono-cropping (861%) system. The tuber crop based farming system could generate additional employment up to 615 days from previous employment status of 212 man days per hectare in a year. Hence, this model could change rice mono-cropping in marginal land holdings to a sustainable farming module to attract and retain farmers in farming in agriculturally backward states like Assam.