With 16.8% of the world's population but less than 2.4% of the world's arable land, India is confronted with several challenges in agricultural development. Food security, employment, income generation, resource conservation and environmental protection have emerged as major world concerns. The achievements in increasing food grain production have been realized with high costs to natural resources and environment. Challenges of providing decent jobs, energy, sustainable cities, food security and sustainable agriculture, water and oceans management and disaster readiness need priority attention. Within the sustainable agriculture framework, integrated farming system (IFS) is one approach towards transforming the idea of sustainable development from concept to reality. Execution of a series of reform measures is need to solve these problems of sustainable agriculture. The development and implementation of integrated farming systems are of special importance for a healthy management of farm resources to enhance farm productivity and reduce environmental degradation, improve quality of life of resource poor farmers and maintain sustainability. Integrated farming system can ensure the highest standard of food production with the minimum environmental impact and improve the quality of life of farmers. More importantly, IFS help to maintain sustainability in farm production and productivity even under highly vulnerable climatic conditions with the available resources accessible to farmer. IFS has revolutionized conventional farming of livestock, aquaculture, horticulture, agro-industry and allied activities in some countries, including India. Some of the IFS models developed, tested and found very successful in providing sustainable enhanced livelihood, especially to small and marginal farmers are discussed.