The technique of farming two or more crops in the same field at the same time is known as intercropping. It has been practised for decades. It provides a number of benefits, including more efficient and effective resource utilization, less soil erosion, increased yield output on a limited cultivated field, risk reduction for smallholder farmers, and higher income per unit of work during times of labour scarcity. Intercropping legumes with cereals, in general, allows for more energy-efficient and continuous agriculture. However, as the world's population grows, a lack of arable land is a major developmental limitation in many rising countries' capacity to meet their basic food and nutritional demands. The most popular types of intercropping used to overcome poorly farmed terrain are mixed intercropping, row intercropping, and strip intercropping. Intercropping is influenced by a variety of factors, including the choice of compatible species, the timing of establishment/planting, knowledge of the physiology of the species to be cultivated at the same time, their growth habits, plant population density, canopy and root architecture, and water and nutrient usage. Various competition indices in cereal-legume intercropping have been used to measure crop yield and efficiency per unit area of land. Only a few of these are the Land Equivalent Ratio, Area Time Equivalent Ratio, Aggressively, Relative Crowding Coefficient, Competitive Ratio, and Actual Yield Loss. A well-managed cereal-legume intercropping system has been found to have beneficial impacts on resource utilization and combined production of low-input crops in the past. The most useful strategy for sustainable agriculture and food security is to address the cereal-legume intercropping system to all farmers in developing countries.
