Agriculture and animal husbandry are culturally, religiously, and economically intertwined with the intricate fabric of human society, as mixed farming and livestock rearing are a vital element of rural life (Dagar, 2017). Draught power, rural transportation, manure, fuel, milk and meat all are provided by livestock, which is quite often the only source of monetary revenue for subsistence farmers and also act as insurance against the crop failure. It also directly affects the livelihood and food security of nearly a billion people around the world and affects the diet and health of many more (Downing et al., 2017;Hurst et al., 2005). For millennia, livestock has been a symbol of wealth and power across civilizations, and India is lucky to have the world's largest and most diverse livestock population. Around 70% of households rely on the livestock and agriculture sector for their livelihood (Ghosh et al., 2016). According to the 20th Livestock Census -2019, India's total livestock population is 535.82 million, up by 4.6% from the previous Census in 2012. Cattle, buffalo, mithun and yak make up the 302.82 million bovine populations. It is home to 57.3% of the world's buffalo population and 14.7% of the world's cattle population. In the country, there are around 74.26 million sheep and 148.8 million goats (20th Livestock Census-2019, 2019).

A field experiment was conducted at the Agricultural Research Farm, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh during 2016–17 and 2017–18 to study the productivity and energetics of rice (Oryza sativa L.)-based cropping systems under irrigated condition. The experiment was conducted in randomized block design with three replications. The treatment comprised ten rice-based cropping sequences. Results revealed that rice-potato-green gram recorded significantly high system rice equivalent yield over rest of the cropping sequences during both the years of study. Energy input was recorded highest in rice-potato-green gram followed by rice-potato-cowpea fodder, rice-mustard-sudan grass fodder, rice-wheat-cowpea fodder and lowest in rice-berseem-cowpea fodder sequence. Rice-mustard-sudan grass fodder sequence recorded significantly high energy output, net energy, energy outputinput ratio and energy intensity as compared to rest of the cropping sequences during both the years of investigation, whereas energy productivity was high in rice-cabbage-cowpea fodder sequence compared to other sequences during both the years of experimentation. However, specific energy was higher in rice-wheat-green gram sequence than rest of the cropping sequences except rice-wheat sequence during second year of investigation where it remained at par with rice-wheat-green gram sequence.