Grass based agroecologic dairying to revitalize small family farms throughout student technical support: The development of a participative methodology responsible for 622 family farm projects

Abstract

A typical pattern that has been observed is for farmers to initially use improved veterinary services to increase the milk yield per cow. Over time, this allows farmers to accumulate funds to also increase the number of cows. This has led to increases on single farms from 35 to 90 times the level of total milk production and allowed farmers to become solvent members in the community. An economic analysis shows that the CDVS has tended to increase net farmers' income as well. More than 75% of farm families had an increase in net income, which ranged from US$ 1.0 to 19.2 per cow per month. A similar programme was established in the Chittagong in 2002. At the beginning, there were 70 farmers producing about 1500 litres of milk per day. Currently, the programme involves 269 farm families who collectively produce about 10 000 litres/day. In addition, the CDVS developed a farmers association that bargains over milk prices with the sweetmeat industries. Previously farmers used to be exploited by the middleman and sweetmeat producers. Now that the productivity veterinary services are available and the associations bargain a good milk price, numbers of dairy farmers and farm milk production have increased. CDVF, in collaboration with BRAC, has extended its activity to the Sirajganj District of Bangladesh by using the same model that is successful in Satkhira. The farmers association in Sirajganj was started in Aug 2009 with an initial collection of 260 litres milk. Now the association is producing 1500 litres milk daily. CDVF has received a subcontract worth US$ 33 200 from Care Bangladesh to test the Satkhira Model in the Joypurhat District of Bangladesh. Current priority is to establish 10 community-based centres and develop those to maximum revenue earning levels incorporating other services like AI, feed and drug shops and community information centres. Each CDVF centre will act as a one stop hub from where the dairy farmers can buy all necessary services.

Social-Ecological System Transformation and Learning: the case of Santa Rosa de Lima’s dairy system, Brazil

“…The current dairy system in SRL, just like many other agri-food systems in the global context, has faced an extensive environmental, political, economic, and financial crisis (GLIESSMAN, 2014). Additionally, its resilience has been shown to be low MURPHY;FARLEY, 2010;LYON, 2014). Thus, a transformation towards a more suitable SES based on social structural changes is needed.…”

“…The questionnaire consisted of 176 questions regarding to family, activity and farm characteristics (Appendix A). Questionnaire was developed based on Meurer (2008), Schmitt Filho, Murphy andFarley (2010), Alvez (2012), Jeremias (2012), andLongo (2013).…”

“…Therefore, in SRL, the transformation was promoted and conducted by a small group, which engaged the local community in the transformation process. LASSre/UFSC and Epagri had already conducted many studies to better understand which factors made the conventional dairy system vulnerable and problematic MURPHY;FARLEY, 2010;FARLEY et. al, 2012;SCHMITT FILHO et al, 2013).…”

Building a Restorative Agricultural Economy: Insights from a Case Study in Santa Catarina, Brazil

“…Our goal with this review article is not to focus on specific project findings in detail, which we have done in many of the articles we cite (e.g., [28,29]), but rather to extract valuable lessons from our experience that can help inform other efforts to build restorative agricultural economies. Creating a restorative agricultural economy is often viewed as a technical problem best solved by scientists [30], or as an economic policy problem best solved by providing appropriate incentives [31].…”

Atributos Físicos Do Solo Em Um Sistema Silvipastoril Com Núcleos Arbóreos No Estado De Santa Catarina

“…Este resgate foi motivado por uma demanda pontual da Associação dos Agricultores Ecológicos das Encostas da Serra Geral -Santa Catarina -Brasil (AGRECO), e está relacionada com a saída dos rebanhos dos estábulos e a alimentação eminentemente à base de pasto (Schmitt Filho et al, 2010;Alvez et al, 2014;Battisti et al, 2018). Em 2011/12 os primeiros produtores estavam implantando o Sistema Silvipastoril com Núcleos de diversidade arbórea (SSPnúcleos) idealizado por Schmitt et al (2010) no Laboratório de Sistemas Silvipastoris e Restauração Ecológica (LASSre/UFSC), antes denominado GPVoisin/UFSC. Após quatro anos de pesquisa-ação participativa (Mendez et al, 2017), o sistema foi idealizado para viabilizar sombra e produtos florestais não madeireiros com espécies nativas já a partir do segundo ano e, sinergicamente, trazer multifuncionalidade para a paisagem e iniciar processos de restauração ecológica do agroecossistema pastoril (Silva et al, 2017;Battisti et al, 2018;Deniz et al, 2019;Simioni et al, 2019).…”