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Mixed farming

Economic activity

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The cultivation of crops alongside the rearing of animals for meat or eggs or milk defines mixed farming. For example, a mixed farm may grow cereal crops, such as wheat or rye, and also keep cattle, sheep, pigs or poultry. Often the dung from the cattle serves to fertilize the crops. Also some of the crops might be used as fodder for the livestock. Before horses were commonly used for haulage, many young male cattle on such farms were often not butchered as surplus for meat but castrated and used as bullocks to haul the cart and the plough.

Agropastoralism is "a set of practices that combine pastoral livelihoods with production of millet, sorghum, maize, vegetables, and pulses", wherein people receive most of their income from cultivation. It is most common in arid and semi-arid climates.

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