- Commercial Farming - the growing of crops / rearing of animals to make a profit
- Subsistence Farming - where there is just sufficient food produced to provide for the farmer's own family
- Arable Farming - involves growing of crops
- Pastoral Farming - involves rearing of animals
- Intensive Farming - where the farm size is small in comparison with the large amount of labour, and inputs of capital, fertilizers etc. which are required.
- Extensive Farming - where the size of a farm is very large in comparison to the inputs of money, labour etc. needed
- Although no two farms are exactly alike, it is obvious to anyone who has traveled in the countryside anywhere in the world that most farms in a particular area usually have many common features. Depending on the environment in that area, most of them grow the same crops, keep the same animals, and go about their farming in roughly similar ways. Therefore, they can be said to practice similar farming systems.
- Farmers have to adapt their farming to their natural environment — to succeed; they must work with nature and not against it. They must also adapt their systems to infrastructural factors, such as land-tenure arrangements, and the availability of inputs such as water, power, fertilizers, pesticides, labour, advice, and information. External economic factors such as location, availability of roads, communications, markets for selling produce, prices, credit, produce subsidies, and other features affect the attractiveness and profitability of different farming systems. Internal factors such as farm size, the available labour force, resources that can be invested and fixed improvements are other obvious determinants. Finally, personal choice and preferences may influence the system
- Farming system approach envisages the integration of agroforestry, horticulture, dairy, sheep and goat rearing, fishery, poultry, pigeon, biogas, mushroom, sericulture and by-product utilization of crops with the main goal of increasing the income and standard of living of small and marginal farmers. The challenge is to upgrade the technological and social disciplines on a continuous basis and integrate these disciplines to suit the region and the farm families in a manner that may ensure increased production with stability, ecological sustainability and equitability.
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