Abstract

Intercropping is one of the important cultural practices in pest management and is based on the
principle of reducing insect pests by increasing the diversity of an ecosystem. Because there is no biodiversity
to mitigate these effects, the insect pests can easily obtain food and multiply, which leads to the infestation of
entire monoculture. In order to deal with the infestations, more insecticides are used to control the pest
populations. These insecticides have tremendous effects on environment, biodiversity, human and animal
health. These negative impacts of insecticides have provoked growing interest in the adoption of multi-function
agricultural biodiversity that promote pest management. One of the agro-biodiversity strategies that improve
the sustainability of crop production along with pest management is intercropping. Intercropping produces
the benefits of on-farm diversity, increased productivity, resource distribution balance, farm risk
reduction, weed and insect pest control. There are indications that intercrops may add additional income to the
farmers apart from reducing the loss by pests through produce of intercrops. Intercrop not only helps in pest
management but also plays a vital role in weed management, disease management, and nematode
management besides conserving the biodiversity. As a result, this paper concluded that, it can be rightly
fitted in the integrated crop management for the improvement of farming community.