13 Guj. J. Ext. Edu. Special Issue on National Seminar : June 2019 INTRODUCTION Crop failure is a common feature of dryland/rainfed agriculture in India. This may because of the inadequate, scanty and erratic distribution of rainfall. Hence, the yield of all the rainfed crops is governed by vagaries of monsoon. Further, fuctuation in market price of produce is now considered as an additional risk factor. Crop diversifcation is the only solution to such monsoon and market risks. Crop diversifcation through intercropping has been shown to improve crop productivity and proftability, conservation of resources and provide a kind of biological insurance against risks and aberrant rainfall behaviour in rainfed condition (Dutta and Bandyopadhyay, 2006). Groundnut is considered as the pre-dominant kharif crop of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. Yield fuctuation under vagaries of monsoon, disease-pest problem and low market price are the major constraints in groundnut cultivation. Hence, during last few years most of the farmers switched over to Bt cotton cultivation. But further low market price of Bt cotton is now became the major constraint besides some production problems. Due to slow growing nature of cotton much of the vacant interspaces remains unutilized during initial stages of the crop growth. This situation offers ample scope for raising intercrops. This situation can be advantageously exploited for intercropping with short, early maturing like blackgram, greengram, soybean, groundnut, sweet corn etc. (Thavaprakaash and Velayudham 2007; Harisudan et al., 2009; Patel et al., 2013). Intercropping in cotton has been recently recognized as potential intervention for doubling the farmers’ income. The Farmer FIRST Programme (FFP) is an ICAR initiative to move beyond the production and productivity, to privilege the smallholder agriculture and complex, diverse and risk prone realities of majority of the farmers through enhancing farmers-scientists interface. On this background the project “Integrated Resource Management in Agriculture and Allied Fields for Stakeholders” under FFP was conducted. OBJECTIVE To know the doubling farmers’ invoce through crop diversifcation and intensifcation under farmers frst programme. METHODOLOGY Field experiments were conducted on 40 farmers’ felds at Hadala (23), Mav Jinjava (9) and Deri Pipaliya (8) villages of Bagasara taluka of Amreli district during 2017- 18 and 2018-19 as crop diversifcation module of “Integrated DOUBLING FARMERS’ INCOME THROUGH CROP DIVERSIFICATION AND INTENSIFICATION UNDER FARMERS FIRST PROGRAMME P. K. Chovatia, R. K. Mathukia, S. G. Savalia, P.V. Patel and D.M. Panara Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh-362001 email: pchovatia@jau.in ABSTRACT Field experiments were conducted on 40 farmers’ felds at three villages of Bagasara taluka of Amreli district during 2017-18 and 2018-19 under the Farmer FIRST Programme “Integrated Resource Management in Agriculture and Allied Fields for Stakeholders”. The technological intervention consisting of cotton + blackgram/sweet corn intercropping + enriched compost was compared with farmers’ practice i.e. sole cotton without organic manure. The results revealed that cotton + black gram/sweet corn intercropping + enriched compost signifcantly increased seed cotton equivalent yield to the tune of 21.78 and 55.28% over the farmer’s practice during 2017-18 and 2018-19, respectively. The technology intervention registered gross income of Rs.125695 and 123943/ha, additional cost of Rs. 10000 and 21250/ha, additional net return of Rs. 12477 and 22129/ha with B:C of 2.25 and 2.04 during 2017-18 and 2018-19, respectively. The technology considerably reduced EC and pH of soil as well as signifcantly increased organic carbon and availability of nutrients in soil as compared to initial status during both the years. Farmers’ feedbacks revealed that the technology is feasible and adoptable to increase yield and income, maintain soil fertility, insurance against vagaries of monsoon and market, effcient use of resources and fodder production for cattle. Keywords: crop diversifcation, farmer frst programme, income