As against the general contention that farm management is mostly applicable to crop farms, its application to other types of farming business, such as orchards, dairying, poultry, etc. is no less important. Faculty farm management has contributed more to citrus decline than the poor physico-chemical conditions of teh soil, the stock-scion incompatibility, insect pests, disease & viruses. Intercropping with exhaustive crops seems to be one of the major reasons for the poor health of the plants. Citrus die-back or decline does not seem to be a disease by itself, but a mere symptomatic expression of physiological imbalance owing to the cumulative effect of several factors.

Similarly, if milk production has to be encouraged, it has to be made more profitable than cereal production. One has to demonstrate how the addition of milch animals to a farm fits into its resource organisation & yields higher returns.

With land as a scarce resource, efforts are made to intensify its use for maximising profits through multiple cropping. During a given period, the relative profitability of different crop rotations is evaluated & finally selected for adoption. 'Kufri Sinduri' variety of potato is not being adopted on a large scale in spite of its giving 10 percent higher yield than some other varieties, e.g. 'Up-to-date'. The reason is simple. The former is a late variety & delays the sowing of wheat which decreases its yield. It sis not 'Kufri Sinduri' potatoes versus 'Up-to-date' potatoes; rather, it is 'Kufri-Sinduri' followed by wheat versus 'Up-to-date' followed by wheat that counts in in farm management. Similarly, in West Bengal, where jute has been competing with paddy, the situation is changing with the introduction of of high-yielding varieties of wheat,which can be rotated with paddy. The comparison in terms of the relative profitability now runs between jute & paddy plus wheat, & not just between jute & paddy. Owing to the paddy-wheat rotation becoming more profitable, jute production in West Bengal is suffering a set back. As Indian agriculture becomes more productive with the passage of time, the farmers will be confronted with the task of making the best selection from among many alternatives.

Sometimes it is said that management is not important on small farms. This notion is widely prevalent under those situations where the farms operate on a low level of technology. In the case of small farms, farm organisation cannot be changed as much as on a large farm, but the choice in respect of farm practices & methods of production , cropping intensity, etc. offer worthwile alternatives. Japan's method of improving agriculture based on the principles of farm management clearly demonstrates that a small farm by itself should not be a hindrance to increased production & higher income. Small farms may have different problems, but the principles of the efficient use of available resources to obtain the maximum economic returns & family satisfaction remain the same in both the cases. The principles of farm management, since they deal with the allocation of resources, apply to small & large farms equally. A Chinese proverb is very appropriate to quote:"Although the size of a sparrow is small, yet it is physiologically as perfect as a big bird".

Planning means taking decisions in advance. It stimulates thinking, broadens understanding & challenges the farmer to move forward. It is a forward-looking approach.

The farm plan helps a farmer to decide how to combine new ideas & old ones to his best advantage. By identifying his credit & supply needs, the farm plan helps him to arrange for the timely supplies of credit, seeds, fertilisers, etc. A specific farm plan setting fort his expected output,expenses & income, serves as a sound basis on which a credit institution can give him production credit, based on his productive capability rather than on his net financial assets. It is out of his income & not through the sale of assets that the cultivator has to pay off his loan. Thus the farm plan or the budget is to the farmer what the blue-print of the architect is to a building contractor. It shows what is to be done & how it is to be done. It furnishes an organised & logical approach to his problems & helps him to work out the solution.

There are three main types of farm budgetings:

• Enterprise budgeting
• Partial budgeting
• Full or complete budgeting & planning.

Enterprise budgeting. The enterprise budgets are the input-output relationship for individual enterprises. An enterprise budget includes all the variable resources required per unit (a hectare/animal/tree, etc.) of an enterprise & its cost, the expected output,gross returns, etc. A format of an enterprise budget is given in Table 1.

GROSS RETURNS
Main product
By-product
Total
CASH VARIABLE EXPENSES
1. Seed & seed treatment
(i)Seed
(ii)Sub-total
2. Manures & fertilisers
A. Farmyard manure
B. Chemical fertilisers
(i)CAN urea
(ii)Superphosphate
(iii)Muriate of Potash
Sub-total
3. Insecticides & fungicides
4. Tractor fuel cost
5. Irrigation hours
6. Human labour
7. Threshing hours with diesel engine
8. Cost of typing material
9. Marketing charges
Sub-total
10. Interest on variable expenses for half the period of growth
11. Total variable expenses
12. Returns over variable expenses
13. Man-hours
14. Bullock labour (pair hours)
15. Machine(tractor hours)

Enterprise budgets provide useful information regarding the resources requirements & the relative profitability of different enterprises. Thus these budgets, considered in the framework of farm resources, are the alternatives from among which the most profitable ones are to be selected. In this context, the enterprise budgets need to be prepared at different levels of technology, as (a)the existing level of technology; and (b) the improved or recommended level of technology.

A comparison of the enterprise budgets at the existing & improved levels of technology provides the scope or the potential of making farm improvements. The enterprise budgets lack in one important aspect that these do not consider the complementary & supplementary relationships amongst themselves which are quite common among farm enterprises at low level of production, but they simply assume to be competitive to one another right from the beginning. But these relationships are taken care of in complete planing & budgeting.

Partial Budgeting. Partial budgeting is a method of making a comparative study of the cost-and-return analysis resulting from a change in a part of the business organisation. This change may be made through a careful selection from among alternative methods of production or practices, the choice of which is based on the opportunity cost of relative profitability & does not affect the total farm organisation vitally. This technique helps to make decisions whenever small changes in the existing farm organisations are contemplated. The following four points are important in setting up a partial budget:

• Additional returns from change
• Reduction in unit cost
• Reduction in yield, if any
• Addition in cost incurred

Thus partial budgets deal with such changes in the farm organisation as can increase farm incomes without changing the total farm organisation. The farmer would know the total net benefit from the change, the complete details of what he should do at what cost & what he is not to do after the change & come out with higher profits.

WHERE PARTIAL BUDGETING IS USED. Partial budgeting maybe used where the change in the activity under study would not affect the farm organisation vitally. It has wide application & can be used to answer a wide variety of questions such as :

• The economic combination of CAN & superphosphate versus diammonium phosphate with a basal dose of CAN,
• the mechanical thinning of fruits like plums & grapes versus chemical thinning,
• the substituting of a more economical dairy ration for a costlier one(a single or two nutrients), and
• American cotton versus hybrid maize versus desi cotton, etc.