Integrated Farming Systems and Socio-economic Characteristics of Punjab Agricultural University Awardee Farmers

The present study entitled “Integrated Farming Systems and Socio-economic characteristics of Punjab Agricultural university Awardee Farmers†was undertaken to study the socioeconomic characteristics and different types of farming systems used by them. A list of awardee farmers was taken from Directorate of Extension Education, PAU Ludhiana, and all of them were respondents for study. It comprised of 60 awardee farmers by PAU Ludhiana for their achievements in agriculture. The data were collected with the help of questionnaire. The results of the study revealed that 96.67 per cent of respondents were males and 3.33 per cent respondents were females. About half of the respondents were having the educational level up to matric, 45 per cent were graduates, over 3 per cent were post graduates and remaining were illiterate. Over 63 per cent lived in nuclear families and over 36 per cent respondents belonged to joint families with 54 per cent owned land. Majority of the members i.e 88.33 per cent had agriculture as a main source of income. All farmers have different integrated farming systems like crop + dairy, crop + floriculture, crop + poultry, crop + beekeeping etc. It was observed that majority of respondents i.e. 76.677 per cent had crop + dairy farming system. About 5 per cent had crops + poultry, 11.67 per cent had crops + beekeeping, 3.33 per cent had crop + forestry, 16.67 per cent had crops + fruits, and 8.33 per cent had crops + floriculture farming system.