Mixed farming is an agricultural system in which a farmer both grows crops and rears animals on the same farm or land area. The crops and livestock complement each other: crop residues and by-products can be used as animal feed, while animal manure enriches the soil for crop production.
This is distinct from:
Growing different types of crops together (such as grains and root crops on the same land), which is better described as mixed cropping or intercropping.
Keeping different types of livestock together (poultry and pigs), which is simply diversified livestock farming.
Cultivating multiple grain crops (wheat, barley, and oats), which is a form of arable farming with crop diversification, not mixed farming in the standard geographic sense.
The defining feature of mixed farming is the combination of crop cultivation and animal husbandry as integrated activities on a single farm unit.
