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Farm Diversification: A Good Management Practice for Agricultural Risk Mitigation

Lila Karki, Uma Karki, Sanjok Poudel, Shailesh Bhattarai, Bidur Paneru, Ananda Tiwari, and Rishi Khatri

Summary

The trend of declining U.S. farms continues steadily. In 2020, the farms decreased by 8.9% compared with 2019. However, the average farm size increased slightly to 444 acres in 2019 compared with 440 acres in 1970. The average age of U.S. farmers increased to 57.5 years in 2017 from 56.3 years in 2012. The small-holders’ situation is further exacerbated due to increased production, marketing, and financial risks. The study implemented agroforestry avenues as good agricultural practice: (1) Silvopasture, (2) Alley cropping, (3) Woodland grazing, and (4) Year-round forage production. The objective of this study was to increase the land-use intensity and household income. Besides a survey, the study conducted research and demonstration sites at Tuskegee University, Alabama A&M University, and four Alabama counties.
The findings of these four components manifested multiple socioeconomic and environmental benefits considerably. The first and second components diversified mono-cropping to multiple commodities that increased annual cash flow and total household income. Of the five types of risks, financial risk was placed on the top by 51%, followed by marketing (34%) and production (32%). Among the risk-mitigating factors, capacity building, agricultural cooperatives, and saving schemes were stated the most prominent by 58%, 66%, and 59% of respondents. Woodland grazing lowered feeding cost by 58 - 204%, and labor cost 50 - 100% compared to conventional feeding systems. The fourth component demonstrated a reduction of up to 79% of feed cost after introducing a year-round forage production program. Participants’ risk mitigation knowledge, attitude, skills, and aspirations strengthened substantially.

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