Sustainability issues with intercrops.
1990
Francis C.A.
Intercropping systems have been developed for a number of complex biological, economic, nutritional, and social reasons. We know that these systems represent a perceived optimum strategy for producing food and income under some of the most difficult of farming situations where resources are limited. The importance of the many factors which influence management decisions in intercropping systems have not been studied in detail, nor have their multiple interactions been quantified successfully by those in research or extension. Conventional wisdom suggests that multiple species in the field each year -- whether intercropped, relay cropped, or sequentially cropped -- make more efficient total use of resources, provide a more varied food supply and income source, and present less risk of failure to the farmer than monoculture systems in the same region under the same conditions. Limited experimental evidence appears to support the hypotheses of efficient resource use and of reduced risk with intercrops. There is greater production stability of dissimilar crops together in the field, just as diverse natural ecosystems persist over a range of different climatic conditions from year to year. Based on limited research plus the observations that low-resource farmers insist on preserving complex mixtures of crop species, it could be concluded that intercropping systems provide greater potential than monoculture for sustained production of food and income, especially in regions of limited resources.
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