This is Mahesh Chander, again, replying to the specific question of Teresa Pinto-Correia (Message 41). Most of the farms in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal are crop-livestock mixed farms unlike specialized farms commonly seen in other parts of the world. These mixed farms follow integrated farming systems where income comes from diverse sources, namely cereal crops, fruits, legumes, fruits, cash crops and livestock and at times fisheries too. In addition, landless livestock keepers contribute substantially to milk and meat production. The majority of the people in rainfed regions of India depend on livestock, owing to low productivity and high uncertainty in crop production. Here, the smallholders and landless together control over 75% of the country's livestock resources and livestock wealth is largely concentrated among the marginal and small landholders in India. This generally means that any growth in the livestock sector would bring prosperity to the small holders. In the events of drought and crop failures, livestock help sustain the families in India's drylands. Livestock contributed 16% to the income of small farm households. Livestock provides livelihood to two-third of rural community. It also provides employment to about 8.8% of the population in India. Therefore, any classification of farms must consider such country specific situations, wherein, contribution of livestock is substantial in households. The question of Teresa Pinto-Correia may be partly answered in the article "A classification of livestock production systems" by H. Steinfeld and J. Mäki-Hokkonen (1995), along with references. It states that "The Livestock production systems are considered to be a subset of farming systems. A review of the literature (Ruthenberg, 1980; Jahnke, 1982; FAO, 1980; De Boer, 1992; FAO, 1994) revealed that most farming systems classifications are not backed by quantitative criteria, which would enable cases to be clearly allocated to one class. These classifications are closer to typologies. No attempts at developing a classification of world livestock systems by using quantitative statistical methodologies (cluster analysis and related methodologies) could be located in the literature. This probably relates to the lack of appropriate data sets for such approaches on a global scale)". In the article, the landless livestock keepers (large scale specialized livestock producers who buy feed and fodder from outside of the farm) defined are appropriate more to those which exist in developed countries, since landless livestock keepers in India are different. Finally I would say that, though it is important, identifying a small farmer with no land, indicators thereof and the threshold for separating small from other farmers remains a challenge to development practitioners. The data is lacking and examples of already applied methods are hard to find!! Mahesh Chander Principal Scientist & Head, Div of Extension Education ICAR- Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar-243122 (UP)-243122 India E-mail: mchanderivri (at) gmail.com Mob: +91 9411087833 +91581 2302391 www.ivri.nic.in Reference: Steinfeld, H. and J. Mäki-Hokkonen. 1995. A classification of livestock production systems. Article in the World Animal Review, Volume 84/85. FAO. http://www.fao.org/docrep/v8180t/v8180t0y.htm [To contribute to this conference, send your message to [log in to unmask] For further information, see http://www.fao.org/nr/research-extension-systems/res-home/news/detail/en/c/434322/ ]. ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the SMALL-FARMS-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=SMALL-FARMS-L&A=1