Inter linkages among various components in farm house or home garden

Nuberg et al. (1994) give the following definitions and ways of assessing the four agro-ecosystem properties:

• Productivity refers to the outputs of the system that have direct market value. Productivity can be assessed as both financial productivity ($/ha/year) and labour productivity ($/labour day), provided that the price of domestically consumed food that is produced by the backyard system is included.
• Stability is more qualitatively assessed as fluctuations of productivity around a long-term average or trend. These fluctuations may be caused by climatic conditions or by pest and disease infestations but can also depend upon fluctuations in the prices of inputs and outputs.
• Sustainability is taken to mean biophysical sustainability. It refers to the depletive or regenerative effects of the agroecosystem on the biophysical resource base. This is measured first by the degree of soil degradation and second by the extent to which the biodiversity of the wild flora and fauna in the region is maintained.
• Autonomy refers to the degree to which materials, energy, and information flow between the agroecosystem and external ecosystems. An agroecosystem becomes less autonomous the more it relies on exogenous inputs. Significant inputs are water, agrochemicals, fuel, genetic material, finance, market information and technology.