Castor Based Intercropping System for Sustainable Income under Rainfed Ecosystem

Castor (Ricinus communis L.) is an important industrial oilseed crop that augurs to rainfed and areas under limited irrigation. In Tamil Nadu castor is cultivated mainly as intercrop, mixed crop for the sustainable income under rainfed and irrigated systems. Hence, the present investigation was undertaken to study farmers’ attitudes on the castor intercropping system and farmers’ income under rainfed ecosystem in Tiruchirappalli district in Tamil Nadu. A sample comprising of 100 castor growers (Farmers who cultivated castor as a primary crop) were selected through a purposive random sampling technique. The samples thus collected were subjected to investigation through well-structured interview schedule comprising of closed and open-end type questions keeping the objectives of study in view. The entire study was confined to Tiruchirappalli district of Tamil Nadu for administrative convinience. The results indicated that adoption of vegetable as inter-crop in castor cultivation is a graded process in which a farmer has to pass through different stages like awareness, interest, evaluation, training and adoption. A High extent of adoption of intercropping system in castor with groundnut (38%), redgram (25%) and cotton (21%) was observed among castor growers. On other hand, it was noticed that, only a meager portion of the respondents (16%) followed to adopt mono-cropping of castor with a cropping intensity of 100%. The data revealed that the castor yield was more in the mono-cropping system (22.7 q/ha) than in inter-cropping (13.6 q/ha). Among the inter-crops, cotton, groundnut followed by redgram fetched higher yield to the tune of 22.2 t/ha, 19.1 t/ha and 11.7 t/ha respectively. The promising outcome of inter-cropping in castor were, 1) Effective utilization of farm resources during rainy season 90%, 2) Reduction in input cost (85%), 3 Enhanced farm income and returns (80%) and 4) Food & Nutritional security to the tune of 79%. The study results also revealed that, the castor growers preferred highly market-driven inter-crop like groundnut and cotton while adopting inter-cropping in castor, few farmers preferred redgram for their domestic consumption besides local market. Adoption of a suitable inter-cropping system is an effective tool to obtain additional income per unit area. At the same time growing of multiple crops in the same field is a way to attain food security in the minimum available land.