ABSTRACT
A cropping system can be defined as a community of crops managed within a farm unit to achieve a specific goal of the farmer (FAO 1995). Its productivity can be measured as the output (food, fodder or other raw materials) per unit of land area, labour invested, or input resources applied. In this chapter we consider cropping systems at the level of individual fields, consisting of a number of components: (1) the crop varieties grown, (2) the mineral nutrient resources applied, (3) the organic matter applied (external or generated within the system), and (4) crop management and agronomic measures (e.g. crop arrangement and density). This chapter focuses on the technologies developed or evaluated by CIALCA to improve individual system components of single crops with the aim of increasing productivity, measured as crop yield per unit land area. Interactions with management decisions, dependent on farm-level factors such as household wealth, production objectives and labour availability, are not considered here.
