An Assessment of Farmers’ Awareness Level Regarding Integrated Farming System in District Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan

Availability of adequate food and water, along with livelihood security, natural resources conservation and environmental protection are considered as basic human needs of a society. The developing world is struggling with lack of or inadequate supply of these resources while combating with climate change at the same time. It is a fact that sustainable development comes only by judicious utilization of the resources and environment protection that help in addressing socio-economic challenges. An integrated farming system (IFS) holds a special position with the central concept that nothing is supposed to be wasted here. It is an integrated approach to farming compared with existing monoculture approach. It passes on to an agricultural system that integrates crop production and livestock. IFS helps small scale farmers to increase cash income, improve quality and quantity of food produced by methodical exploitation of resources. Purpose of the study was to assess the awareness of the farmers to determine the impact of integrated farming system (IFS) on agricultural development and improving the livelihoods in the study area. To accomplish these objectives, an interview schedule was developed as a research instrument to record the opinions of the respondents by using Likert-type scale. The 200 respondents were selected through systematic random sampling technique. The response rate was 60%. Hence, the sample of 120 respondents was used for final analysis and description of the results. The instrument’s validity and reliability were checked before data collection. In-person interviews were conducted by the researcher. The collected data were analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Based on the results, it is concluded that majority of the farmers were not willing to adopt IFS due to their traditional perceptions. Those farmers have constraints such as little or no access to information for integrated farming system. Strong association was observed between awareness for better farming choices and preferred farming practices that shows Extension intervention is required to encourage farmers choose advanced farming practices like IFS.