Rain water harvesting, agroforestry and goat based intensification for livelihood resilience in drought prone rainfed smallholder farming system: a case for semi-arid tropics

Rainfed areas are the home of millions of resource poor farmers whose livelihood is under continuous threat due to frequent droughts. Assuring double cropping and imparting livelihood resilience to rainfed smallholders is a challenge. A study was planned in this direction during 2013–2021 for livelihood resilience and sustainable intensification of rainfed smallholder farming systems through rain water harvesting and agroforestry based interventions. The one hectare rainfed farming system model comprising of rain water harvesting farm pond (25 m × 20 m × 2.5 m), less water requiring food crops (groundnut–barley and sorghum–chickpea), agrihorticulture [Ziziphus mauritiana + (Sesamum indicum–Cicer arietinum)], silvipasture (Leucaena leucocephala + Tri-species hybrid grass + Stylosanthes hamata) and boundary plantation (Leucaena leucocephala and Opuntia ficus-indica) was evaluated at on-station as well as promoted on-farm. The goat rearing potential of the above model was also estimated under intensive and semi-intensive systems. The on-station rainfed farming system module produced 4979 kg ha−1 barley equivalent yield consisting of multiple products like barley, chickpea, groundnut, Indian jujube fruits, sesame, fodder (sorghum, TSH, Stylosanthes, Leucaena dried leaf meal and spine-less fodder cactus cladodes) and Grewia fruits and resulted in 655 US$ year−1 net returns with a benefit cost ratio of 2.1. The carrying capacity of the above model was found to be 9 and 35 goat year−1 under intensive and semi-intensive rearing systems, respectively. The net returns increased by 36 and 226% with the inclusion of goat under intensive (US$ 892) and semi-intensive rearing system (US$ 2136), respectively in the rainfed farming system model. It was evident from the study that inclusion of goat, agroforestry and farm pond for rain water harvesting in the rainfed farming have resulted in higher profitability and resilience to less rainfall and its aberrations. Contrarily, the on-farm observations revealed that farmers could not take winter season crops without rain water harvesting. The rain water harvesting proved to be the key for reducing chances of crop failures due to droughts, ensuring double cropping (cropping intensity up to 200%) and sustainable intensification in rainfed areas. It can be concluded from the present study that intervention of water harvesting, agroforestry and goat in rainfed farming systems could enhance the farm productivity and profitability and impart resilience to the livelihood of rainfed farmers in semi-arid tropics.


Introduction
Globally, rainfed agriculture accounts for 79% of crop lands consisting of 95% in sub-Saharan Africa; 90% in Latin America; 75% in the Near East and North Africa; 65% in East Asia; and 60% in South Asia (FAO 2021).Rainfed areas have special significance in terms of ecology, farm productivity and livelihood for millions of resource poor farmers and livestock keepers especially in arid and semi-arid tropics (Wani et al. 2009).Rainfed agriculture occupies about 51.2% of India's net cropped area (140 m ha), contributes 44% to the total food basket and supports nearly 40% population (Anonymous 2021).The rainfed agro-ecosystems of India are characterised by high livestock and human population pressure, poverty, rapidly degrading natural resources (soil and water), very low crop productivity (1000-1500 kg ha −1 ) and rain water use efficiency (35-45%) for crop production (Palsaniya et al. 2012a).Agriculture in rainfed areas is a crop-livestock mix, highly complex, diverse (Palsaniya et al. 2009) and risk prone due to vagaries of monsoon (Palsaniya et al. 2011).A majority of the farmers in rainfed systems in India are marginal and smallholders (86.2%), resource poor, practice subsistence type of agriculture (Bisht et al. 2020) and highly vulnerable to both short-term dry spells and long-term droughts (Rai et al. 2014).Moreover, changing rainfall patterns due to climate change may further compound the problems of rainfed farmers by intensifying dry spells and water scarcity.Contrary to this, if managed properly, rainfed areas have tremendous potential to contribute a larger share in global food basket and faster agricultural growth compared to the irrigated areas which have reached a plateau (Wani et al. 2009).Thus, imparting livelihood resilience to farmers under rainfed condition needs utmost attention.
The livelihood resilience under rainfed situation is the ability of agricultural system to cope with the climate related (especially rainfall) stress.The impact of such rainfall related stresses in farming systems under rainfed conditions can be avoided or minimized by adopting rain water harvesting practices, perennial crop components and animals.Rain water harvesting cum efficient recycling and agroforestry based intensification offer a great opportunity for enhancing productivity, natural resource conservation, risk proofing and sustaining livelihood of farmers practicing rainfed agriculture (Palsaniya et al. 2012b).Rain water harvesting through farm ponds and its efficient recycling through drip and sprinkler systems as supplementary irrigation is useful in minimising the chances of crop failures during short-term dry spells (Palsaniya et al. 2012a).Similarly, adoption of agroforestry through including perennial components like fruit trees, fodder trees/shrubs, perennial grasses in land use also minimize risk as perennials are less affected by droughts and other weather vagaries (Palsaniya et al. 2010).Inclusion of animal components in such farming systems may further improve the profitability and resilience of the production system.Adoption and investments in rain water harvesting and agroforestry techniques are, therefore, important ways for decreasing risk and ensuring livelihood resilience in rainfed agriculture.
Vol.: (0123456789) However, despite the ample importance and scope, the adoption rates of water-harvesting techniques and agroforestry in rainfed farming system mode are low.The systematic information on water harvesting-crop-agroforestry-animal integration under rainfed situation is scanty and therefore, need to be researched upon.Small ruminants (sheep and goat) play an important role in the livelihood of farmers in rainfed systems.Small ruminants are raised under intensive (stall feeding) and semi-intensive (partial stall feeding and partial grazing) systems in rainfed areas (Mahanta et al. 2012;Shivakumara and Siddaraju 2019).There is also a need of exploring and calculating the carrying capacity potential and possible economic benefits of such rainfed models under stall feeding and semi-intensive animal rearing systems.Therefore, the present investigation was carried out to know the impact of rain water harvesting and agroforestry based intensification on livelihood resilience of rainfed smallholder farming systems of India.The hypothesis of this study was to ascertain whether integration of rainwater harvesting and agroforestry would increase the productivity, profitability and resilience of farmers in rainfed systems.It was also intended to know whether such integration would enhance the potential of animal rearing eventually leading to increased farmer's livelihood and resilience.

Site characteristics
The field experiment was carried out at the Central Research Farm of ICAR-Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi (Uttar Pradesh), India during 2014-2018.The latitude, longitude and altitude of the site were 25°27ʹ N, 78°35ʹ E and 271 m, respectively.The area received 652, 713, 827, 486 and 1055 mm rainfall during 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively.The corresponding rainy days were 45, 48, 48, 35 and 43.The soil of the site was red in colour, sandy loam in texture, normal in pH (7.6), low in available N (131 kg ha −1 ) and available K (190 kg ha −1 ) and medium in available P (15.9 kg ha −1 ) and soil organic carbon (0.58%).The electrical conductivity of the soil was 0.34 mmho cm −1 .

Module of interventions
The average land holding size in the study area is 1.08 ha.Therefore, one ha farming system model was developed with different components (water harvesting pond, rainfed crops, agrihorticulture, silvipasture, boundary plantation) as shown in Table 1 and described below.maintained as hedge row and regularly harvested at 1.5 m height to get additional fodder as and when needed.Similarly, Grewia asiatica was planted on pond dykes at 2 m plant to plant distance to get fruits, fodder and twigs.

Goat production potential
Small ruminants, especially goats are an important component of the rainfed farming systems in semiarid tropics.Inclusion of goats in the rainfed farming system may further enhance the profitability and reduce the associated risk.Therefore, the goat production potential was estimated for the studied rain water harvesting and agroforestry based farming system model.The carrying capacity and possible economic benefits were estimated by assuming two small ruminant rearing scenarios, i.e., intensive and semiintensive systems.The animals were stall-fed under the intensive system while they were allowed to graze in community and fallow lands and partially supplemented with farm forages, under the semi-intensive system.The goat carrying capacity and production potential scenario for the above rainfed farming system model were estimated by calculating the dry matter (DM) available from this system and assessing the dry matter (DM) requirements per goat, assuming a daily body weight gain of 70 g and a DM intake at the rate of 3.6% of body weight (ICAR 2013).The goat carrying capacity of the studied rainfed farming system model was calculated by dividing the DM availability from the model (3150 kg ha −1 year −1 ) by the DM requirement for one growing goat (15-38 kg body weight) for a period of 12 months under intensive rearing system (350 kg DM goat −1 year −1 ) and semiintensive rearing system (90 kg DM goat −1 year −1 ) (Table 4).In the intensive system, the animals were completely stall-fed on cultivated feed and fodder, crop residues available from the integrated farming system model and were maintained indoors.In the semi-intensive system, the animals were allowed to graze for 6-7 h daily.In the semi-intensive system, the availability of nutrients from grazing was calculated as per Mahanta et al. (2012) where the forage biomass yield was estimated at monthly intervals by clipping all the herbaceous vegetation to a 2.5 cm stubble height in four 0.5 m × 0.5 m random quadrates.Forage samples collected were dried, processed and analysed for proximate principles (crude protein, fiber and ash) following the method of AOAC (1990).The goat carrying capacity for the semi-intensive grazing system was calculated based on the finding that of the total DM required (i.e., 3.6% of body weight in the present investigation), DM @ 1% of the body weight of the animal is supplemented from the farm model and the remaining part (2.6% of the body weight) is met by the grazing in the common property resources (CPRs) and private fallow lands (Mahanta et al. 2012).
In both systems, the nutrient requirements [digestible crude protein (DCP) @ 6 g kg −1 W 0.75 and total digestible nutrient (TDN) @ 43 g kg −1 W 0.75 ] were calculated for the average daily body weight gain of 70 g following the standards as described in ICAR ( 2013).
The surplus and other non-edible produce from the rainfed farming system model were sold.It is assumed that goat kids with 15 kg body weight were included in the system and their body weight gains were calculated @ 70 g day −1 in the intensive system and @ 40 g day −1 in semi-intensive system as per the findings reported in ICAR ( 2013).The animals were sold after attaining 41 kg body weight in the intensive system and 28 kg body weight in the semi-intensive system.The meat yield was calculated at 50% dressing rate (i.e., meat yield = 50% of total body weight) and meat was sold @ Indian Rupees 600 kg −1 meat.The returns from manure (Indian Rupees 541 animal −1 in the intensive and Indian Rupees 332 animal −1 in the semi-intensive system) and skin (Indian Rupees 250 animal −1 ) were also included in the calculation of the economics of the systems.The expenditure on different parameters used in rearing and upkeep of animals Vol:.( 1234567890) was calculated as per the values suggested by Shivakumara and Siddaraju (2019).

On-farm survey
The farmers were encouraged to adopt the rainfed farming system activities simultaneously.A large number of farmers from surrounding areas of ICAR-Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute (IGFRI), Jhansi, were exposed to the rain water harvesting, agroforestry, goatry, etc. farming system during their visits to the institute under various capacity building programmes like trainings, field days, farmers' fairs, exhibitions, etc.A field survey was conducted during 2021 to collect information on the profitability and resilience of the above activities using a well structured questionnaire.Eighty five farmers practicing rainfed farming were selected from the Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh (seven villages-Sakrar, Ambabai, Birdha, Amarpur, Palinda, Parwai and Lakara), Niwari district (four villages-Ghisalni, Hathiwar, Parasari, Rajapur), Tikamgarh district (three villages-Kurrai, Nandanpur, Kant) and Datia district (one village Garera) of Madhya Pradesh for the survey.The farmers were selected randomly, based on their exposure to on-station rainfed farming system module at the Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute and also depending on their farming components (practicing rainfed farming and having crops, goats, trees and farm pond components).The detailed profile of the selected farmers is described in Table 5.
The life cycle assessment and process analysis approach was used in the present study (Jones 1989;Jianbo 2006;Palsaniya et al. 2021).A detailed inventory of inputs and outputs of all the components of the rainfed farming module was compiled.The sun dried harvests from each component were threshed, winnowed and finally weighed after 15-20 days from harvesting.The final produce from individual components (grains, fruits, straw/stover, green fodder, etc.) was recorded.The barley equivalent yield (BEY) was calculated to compare system performance by converting the yield of non-barley crops or components into equivalent barley yield on a price basis, using equation number (1).
All the data were analyzed for their descriptive parameters for mean, range and standard error (SE) by using SPSS software (version 16.0).The production cost and returns from individual components were calculated using prevailing market prices of their respective inputs and outputs.The cost component in farming system included two types of costsfixed costs and variable costs.Variable costs included the cost of inputs like seeds, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, ploughing, irrigation, labour charges, animal cost, feed and fodder cost, veterinary expenses, etc.The fixed costs comprised the one-time initial investment, especially in perennial components, construction of the animal shed, digging of the farm pond, establishment of Indian jujube, Leucaena, TSH, etc.The initial fixed cost incurred during the first year, therefore the fixed cost in subsequent years was calculated by adding the interest on the initial investment (calculated @ 7% annum −1 which is the most common interest rate in India at which farmers can take a loan from a bank), yearly depreciation and amortization cost.This fixed cost was added to the variable cost every year to calculate the total yearly cost.The gross return from each component was calculated by multiplying the quantity of produce by its prevailing market price.The total cost was deducted from the gross return to calculate the net return (Eq.2) while the benefit cost ratio (BCR) was calculated on gross return basis using Eq. ( 3).

Results
Rainfall pattern during the study period Rainfall is the primary source of water and is the main consideration for raising crops particularly in rainfed condition.Annual and monthly rainfall distribution during the study period has been shown in  ).In total, the rainfed farming system module produced 4979 kg ha −1 barley equivalent yield consisting of the multiple products above reported.
The total cost of cultivation, gross returns, net returns and benefit cost ratio of the one ha rainfed farming system model were 589 US$, 1244 US$, 655 US$ and 2.1, respectively (Table 3).It is evident from Fig. 1 that the contribution of food crop components (446 US$) was the highest (62.9%) in the total net returns of the model, followed by agrihorticulture (137 US$, 19.3%), silvipasture (75 US$, 10.6%) and boundary plantation (51 US $, 7.2%).

Goat production potential and profitability
The carrying capacity of the rainfed farming system model was found to be 9 and 35 goats year −1 under intensive and semi-intensive rearing systems, respectively.The economic potential of the model was estimated under intensive and semi-intensive goat rearing systems (Table 4).Nearly 294 and 459 US$ initial investment was needed for animal shed, fencing, equipment and electric and water tank installations under intensive and semi-intensive rearing systems, respectively.The cost of animal shed comprised 74% of the total initial investment in both the systems of small ruminant rearing.The yearly fixed cost due to the initial investment was found to be 41 and 65 US$ under intensive and semi-intensive rearing systems, respectively (Table 4).The variable cost under intensive and semi-intensive small ruminant rearing system was 1293 and 3026 US$ year −1 , respectively and consisted of animal cost, feed and fodder cost, labour cost, veterinary expenses and other miscellaneous cost.The feed and fodder cost was found to be the major cost (46%) followed by animal cost (30%), labour cost (21%) and others in intensive rearing system while animal cost, labour and feed and fodder constituted 50, 28 and 19% of the total variable cost in semi-intensive rearing system.
The gross return from the intensive rearing system was US$ 2226 and consisted of returns from meat (US$ 1740, 78%), skin (US$ 35, 2%), manure (US$ 75, 3%) and sale of non-edible produce (US$ 377, 17%).On the other hand, the semi-intensive rearing system yielded US$ 5226 gross returns out of which, 87% (US$ 4560) was from animal meat, 3% (US$ 135) from skin, 3% (US$ 179) from manure and 7% (US$ 352) from sale of non-edible produce from the model.The intensive and semi intensive small ruminant rearing system produced US$ 892 and 2136 net returns, respectively with almost similar benefit cost ratio (Table 4).It is evident from the study that inclusions of small ruminants in rainfed farming model both as intensive and semi-intensive systems can enhance the profitability of the family farm.The net return from the rainfed farming system was US$ 655 which can increase to US$ 892 and 2136 if small ruminants are included under intensive and semi-intensive systems, respectively.The net returns increased by 36 and 226% on inclusion of goat under intensive and semi-intensive rearing system, respectively in the water harvesting and agroforestry based rainfed farming system model.

Resilience
The inclusion of goat, agroforestry (tree) and farm pond for rain water harvesting in the rainfed farming resulted in higher profitability and resilience to reduced rainfall and its aberrations (Table 5 and Fig. 2).The survey of rainfed farms having different components revealed that net returns increased with inclusion of livestock (US$ 521 ha −1 ), livestock + tree (US$ 586 ha −1 ) and livestock + tree + farm pond (US$ 857 ha −1 ) in the production system.The contribution of crop component in crop + livestock, crop + livestock + tree and crop + livestock + tree + farm pond rainfed farming systems in net income was 75, 70 and 80%, respectively while the corresponding contribution of livestock was 25, 18 and 10%.The contribution of tree component was 0 (crop + livestock), 12 (crop + tree + livestock) and 10% (crop + tree + livestock + farm pond) in net return.The farmers reported 24, 20 and 6% chances of crop failure due to aberrant rains in crop + livestock, crop + livestock + tree and crop + livestock + tree + farm pond rainfed farming systems, respectively during the rainy season.During the winter season, 100% chances of crop failure were reported by farmers in crop + livestock and crop + livestock + tree based farming systems.They further observed that the chances of crop failure due to aberrant rainfall during the winter season decreased to 5-10% if farmers had a farm pond for rain water harvesting and recycling.In the rainfed farming system model, no crop failure was observed due to the presence of the farm pond, where rain water was harvested and efficiently utilized, when needed, through a sprinkler system for irrigation of crops.Further, the resilience in net income was the highest (2136 US$ ha −1 ) when goat rearing was included under semi-intensive system followed by intensive system (Fig. 2).

Discussion
The results indicated that integration of rainfed crops, perennial components like Leucaena, trispecies hybrid grass and Stylosanthes (silvipasture), Ziziphus mauritiana (agrihorticulture) and small ruminants (goat) in conjunction with rain water harvesting through farm pond in rainfed farming systems offered an opportunity to increase farm productivity, profitability and resilience.Cropping in rainfed agro-ecological situations of central India relies mostly on the annual rainfall distribution, where crops are mainly grown during the rainy season with 100% cropping intensity.Rain water harvesting in farm ponds allows to grow a second crop which can be life saving under rainfed situations.In Bundelkhand region of central India, the rugged and undulating topography and hard underground strata offer great opportunities for rain water harvesting in farm ponds and reservoirs, for crop production (Palsaniya et al. 2011(Palsaniya et al. , 2012b)).In the present investigation, a farm pond of 25 m × 20 m × 2.5 m dimension was dug which resulted in the creation of approximately 1.25 × 106 L of rainwater harvesting and storage facility.This harvested rainwater was used for growing different crops with low water requirements and irrigation was applied through a sprinkler system during the subsequent dry winter season.It is worth mentioning that no winter cropping is possible in the central part of India without rain water harvesting as evident from the on-farm situation (Table 5).As a case study, the chickpea minimum water requirement in terms of MAI was calculated during different years (Fig. 3).To satisfy this MAI limit, deficit irrigation was provided from the water harvested in the pond.
The water balance showed that in the first fortnight of October, the MAI index was below 0.30 during all the four season except in 2015-16, and without pre irrigation, sowing of the crop was not possible.Therefore, pre-sowing irrigation was provided during 2014-15, 2016-17 and 2017-18. Whenever MAI values  Inclusion of perennial components (trees and grasses) not only enhances productivity but also provides livelihood resilience to farming systems operating under rainfed condition as these components are less affected by the vagaries of the weather (Dhyani et al. 2011).The Leucaena, tri-species hybrid grass and Stylosanthes produced some much needed fodder for livestock and Ziziphus mauritiana produced fruits for human consumption without any external application of water in the present farming system model.The annual crops are well known to have vulnerability to drought compared to perennial crops.Dev et al. (2020), working at the same location, also concluded that inclusion of perennials as agroforestry helped increasing productivity, profitability and livelihood security in rainfed semi-arid tropics.Farmers On-station rainfed farming system + intensive rearing system On-station rainfed farming system + semi-intensive rearing system On-farm crop + livestock rainfed farming system On-farm crop + tree + livestock rainfed farming system On-farm crop + tree + livestock + farm pond rainfed farming system Net returns (US$/ha) Fig. 2 Resilience in profitability under various on-station and on-farm rainfed farming systems consider drought resistance and livelihood resilience as the main motivating factors for adopting agroforestry in this part of India (Palsaniya et al. 2010).Inclusion of goats in vulnerable rainfed farming system offered great opportunities for enhancing profitability and resilience.Higher and favourable croplivestock interactions, less market dependency and greater flexibilities have also been reported in less vulnerable mixed crop-livestock systems by Sneessensa et al. ( 2019).The total return in goat rearing increased with the flock size from intensive to semi intensive system, corroborating earlier findings of Dixit and Singh (2014) and Tanwar and Chand (2013).However, net return per goat was higher in intensive system (99 US$ goat −1 ) with smaller flock size than with the semi intensive system (61 US$ goat −1 ) as previously found by Kumar et al. (2014) and Shivakumara and Siddaraju (2019).This indicated that the intensive rearing system involves high cost of production but these are compensated by higher animal productivity in terms of meat, skin and manure.The present result suggests that combining grazing with supplementation is potentially more profitable than pen-feeding with no grazing, corroborating findings by Legesse et al. (2005).Thus, goat rearing under integrated systems may provide opportunities for regular income and can generate more employment for the farming family round the year.The higher net income due to the inclusion of goats highlighted the importance of animals in enhancing the livelihood of rainfed livestock keepers.Ray et al. (2020) reported 56.6% higher net return due to inclusion of livestock in the farming system.Singh et al. (2010) also observed higher net income from the livestock component in the semi-arid areas.Higher returns and more secured livelihood of the semi-arid farmers through crop-livestock based interventions were also reported by Dwivedi et al. (2018).Diversification of the farming system (crop, tree, livestock, etc.) also increases resiliency in terms of income and employment.
The enhanced and assured productivity and profitability of the farming system model might be due to the positive interactions and synergies among its components.The proper resource recycling among various components under the proposed farming system resulted in higher productivity and income.The components in a farming system interact synergistically and the by-product or output of one component is used as input in another, which minimizes the external dependence and leads to higher productivity, income and resilience (Palsaniya et al. 2017).Panwar et al. (2018) reported that the perennial components and livestock provide risk proofing to the farmer as they are more stable and less prone to aberrant weather conditions than annual food crops.A large number of other workers also concluded that greater synergies, positive interactions and proper resource recycling among the components of farming systems were largely responsible for enhanced productivity, income and resilience (Kumar et al. 2018;Accatinoa et al. 2019;Palsaniya et al. 2022).
The farm families under rainfed farming situation can further improve their livelihood and earnings by adopting other appropriate site specific extra income generating activities like mushroom farming, bee keeping, wormi-composting, processing, etc.The productivity gap between on-station farming module and real on-farm situation should be bridged by encouraging farmers to include suitable short duration, high yielding varieties along with improved package of practices.Further, the perennials, especially trees, take time to establish and to be productive.In the present investigation, among the perennials, trispecies hybrid grass and Stylosanthes starts production within the first season, Leucaena from second year while Indian jujube from third year onwards.The potential full benefits from Indian jujube usually starts from 5-6 year onward that will further enhance the economic benefits to the farm families.

Conclusion
It can be concluded from the present study that intervention of water harvesting, agroforestry and goats in the rainfed farming systems could enhance farm productivity and profitability and impart resilience to the livelihood of farmers.Rain water harvesting is the key for reducing chances of crop failures due to droughts, ensuring double cropping (cropping intensity up to 200%) and sustainable intensification in rainfed areas.The net returns can be further increased by 36 and 226% on inclusion of goat as intensive and semi-intensive rearing system in water harvesting and agroforestry based rainfed farming system model.The inclusion of perennial components like grasses, trees, etc. in the system enhances the resilience and income.Therefore, it appears that large scale adoption of rain water harvesting, agroforestry and goat based technology by the farmers could bring considerable improvement in the livelihood of rainfed smallholder farming systems, at least under the conditions of the parts of India considered in this study, but probably also elsewhere where similar conditions apply.

Fig. 1
Fig. 1 Contribution of various components of farming system to net returns

Fig. 3
Fig. 3 Rainfall (R), irrigation (IRR) and moisture adequacy index (MAI) during the crop growth period of chickpea in various years (a to d)

Table 1
Components of the rainfed farming system Vol:. (1234567890)Boundary plantationLeucaena leucocephala and spineless fodder cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica) were planted on the boundary of the one hectare farming system model.Leucaena and cactus were planted at 1 m plant to plant distance and Vol.: (0123456789)

Table 2
Rainfall distribution (mm) during the study period

Table 2 .
The maximum annual rainfall of 1053 mm was recorded in the year 2013, whereas minimum rainfall (508.6 mm) was recorded during 2017.Distribution of monthly rainfall showed that the highest amount of rainfall recorded in the month of July followed by August.In the month of July, maximum rainfall of 447.8 mm distributed in 17 rainy days was received during the year 2016 followed by the year 2013, which received rainfall of 437.2 mm in 24 rainy days.During the winter season (November to March) no rainfall was received during November and December month except in 2013.However, 2014 and 2015 received more than 100 mm of rainfall during January to March.

Table 3
Yield, barley equivalent yield (BEY) and economics under rain water harvesting and agroforestry based rainfed farming system (mean of 4 years) * Where TSH, GFY and LM are tri-species hybrid, green fodder yield and leaf meal, respectively ** Figures in the parenthesis are by-product of the crop and the value after ± is SE *** The currency mean exchange value: 1 US $ = 65 Indian Rupee (₹)

Table 5
Profitability and resilience of various on-farm rainfed farming systems Figures after ± is SE; The currency mean exchange value: 1 US $ = 65 Indian Rupee (₹)