Crop–animal interactions in mixed farming systems in Asia

Devendra, C.; Thomas, Dean T.

doi:10.1016/s0308-521x(01)00034-8

Cited by 149 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Crop-animal integrated farming is a well-recognized practice of smallholder farmers in Asia (Devendra and Thomas 2002a). Although based on crop production, integrated crop-animal farming is a backbone of smallscale Asian agriculture (Devendra and Thomas 2002b).…”

Section: Integrated Crop-animal Farmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traditional agriculture: a climate-smart approach for sustainable food production

Singh

2017

Energ. Ecol. Environ.

224

118

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Sustainable food production is one of the major challenges of the twenty-first century in the era of global environmental problems such as climate change, increasing population and natural resource degradation including soil degradation and biodiversity loss. Climate change is among the greatest threats to agricultural systems. Green Revolution though multiplied agricultural production several folds but at the huge environmental cost including climate change. It jeopardized the ecological integrity of agroecosystems by intensive use of fossil fuels, natural resources, agrochemicals and machinery. Moreover, it threatened the age-old traditional agricultural practices. Agriculture is one of the largest sectors that sustain livelihood to maximum number of people and contribute to climate change. Therefore, a climate-smart approach to sustainable food production is the need of hour. Traditional agriculture is getting increased attention worldwide in context of sustainable food production in changing climate. The present article advocates traditional agriculture as a climate-smart approach for the sustainable food production and also deliberates the correlation between climate change and agriculture.

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Section: Integrated Crop-animal Farmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traditional agriculture: a climate-smart approach for sustainable food production

Singh

2017

Energ. Ecol. Environ.

224

118

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“…Tropical smallholder livestock keepers represent about 20% of the world population (McDermott et al 2010), and livestock play a significant role in household food and income (Funes-Monzote 2008; Descheemaeker et al 2010), serving cultural and traditional purposes, as well as supplying the household members and local communities with products like meat, milk, eggs, skin, and bones (Wilson 2009;Powell et al 2004;Devendra and Thomas 2002), and finally providing draft power (Powell et al 2004;Descheemaeker et al 2010). In the farming system, the integration of livestock can give longterm benefits in terms of compost and utilization of marginal areas, in this way helping to prevent land degradation and erosion and contributing to resilient and robust, diversified, and intensified agro-ecological systems (Funes-Monzote 2008;Pretty 2006;Halberg et al 2009;Vaarst 2010).…”

Section: Tropical Organic Livestock Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concepts of Animal Health and Welfare in Organic Livestock Systems

Vaarst

Alrøe

2011

J Agric Environ Ethics

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In 2005, The International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM) developed four new ethical principles of organic agriculture to guide its future development: the principles of health, ecology, care, and fairness. The key distinctive concept of animal welfare in organic agriculture combines naturalness and human care, and can be linked meaningfully with these principles. In practice, a number of challenges are connected with making organic livestock systems work. These challenges are particularly dominant in immature agro-ecological systems, for example those that are characterized by industrialization and monoculture. Some of the current challenges are partly created by shortages of land and manure, which encourage zero-grazing and other confined systems. Other challenges are created in part by the conditions for farming and the way in which global food distribution systems are organized, e.g., how live animals are transported, how feed is traded and transported all over the globe, and the development of infrastructure and large herds. We find that the overall organic principles should be included when formulating guidelines for practical organic animal farming. This article explores how the special organic conceptions of animal welfare are related to the overall principles of organic agriculture. The aim is to identify potential routes for future development of organic livestock systems in different contexts and with reference to the specific understanding of animal welfare in organic agriculture. We include two contrasting cases represented by organic livestock systems in northwestern Europe and farming systems in tropical low-income countries; we use these cases to explore the widely different challenges of organic livestock systems in different parts of the world.

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“…These systems demonstrate complementarity in resource use, where inputs from one sector are supplied to others and animals make key contributions to increased production, income generation and improved sustainability of cropping systems (Devendra and Thomas, 2002;Dugue et al, 2004;Herrero et al, 2011). Refocusing on the Global North, Franzluebbers and Stuedemann (2007) investigated the social barriers limiting the expansion of MC-L systems in the United States, whereas Bell and Moore (2012) underlined limits to crop-livestock systems on diversified farms that simply juxtapose two independent components that are easier to manage than a complex integrated system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mixed crop–livestock farming systems: a sustainable way to produce beef? Commercial farms results, questions and perspectives

Veysset

Lherm

Bébin

et al. 2014

Animal

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Mixed crop-livestock (MC-L) farming has gained broad consensus as an economically and environmentally sustainable farming system. Working on a Charolais-area suckler cattle farms network, we subdivided the 66 farms of a constant sample, for 2 years (2010 and 2011), into four groups: (i) 'specialized conventional livestock farms' (100% grassland-based farms (GF), n = 7); (ii) 'integrated conventional crop-livestock farms' (specialized farms that only market animal products but that grow cereal crops on-farm for animal feed, n = 31); (iii) 'mixed conventional crop-livestock farms' (farms that sell beef and cereal crops to market, n = 21); and (iv) organic farms (n = 7). We analyse the differences in structure and in drivers of technical, economic and environmental performances. The figures for all the farms over 2 years (2010 and 2011) were pooled into a single sample for each group. The farms that sell crops alongside beef miss out on potential economies of scale. These farms are bigger than specialized beef farms (with or without on-farm feed crops) and all types of farms show comparable economic performances. The big MC-L farms make heavier and consequently less efficient use of inputs. This use of less efficient inputs also weakens their environmental performances. This subpopulation of suckler cattle farms appears unable to translate a MC-L strategy into economies of scope. Organic farms most efficiently exploit the diversity of herd feed resources, thus positioning organic agriculture as a prototype MC-L system meeting the core principles of agroecology.

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Crop–animal interactions in mixed farming systems in Asia

Cited by 149 publications

References 2 publications

Traditional agriculture: a climate-smart approach for sustainable food production

Traditional agriculture: a climate-smart approach for sustainable food production

Concepts of Animal Health and Welfare in Organic Livestock Systems

Mixed crop–livestock farming systems: a sustainable way to produce beef? Commercial farms results, questions and perspectives

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