Grazing management for more resilient mixed livestock farming systems on native grasslands of southern South America

Modernel, P; Picasso, Valentín; Carmo, M. Do; Rossing, W.A.H.; Corbeels, Marc; Soca, P.; Dogliotti, Santiago; Tittonell, Pablo

doi:10.1111/gfs.12445

Cited by 29 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(63 reference statements)

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“…In addition, since people are increasingly leaving the rural area, strengthening already existing local participation platforms (e.g. Rural Development Boards where landowners meet to discuss about local problems; Cruz et al, 2018) Modernel et al, 2019). In addition, financial incentives, such as cost-share programmes, can provide landowners with economic support to cover part of the costs of implementing conservation actions on their lands (Casey et al, 2006).…”

Section: F I G U R Ementioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring landowners' perceptions, motivations and needs for voluntary conservation in a cultural landscape

et al. 2020

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While efforts to reverse the current global environmental crisis increase, we are still experiencing unprecedented rates of species' extinctions. Traditional cultural landscapes can potentially play an important role for biodiversity conservation globally. However, these landscapes are threatened by pressures from global to local socio‐economic drivers of change. Many cultural landscapes across the world occur on private land where landowners' environmental stewardship can help support nature conservation. In this study, we applied a place‐based collaborative approach to understand the main aspects underlying landowners' relationship with nature, their perceptions of the local social–ecological context and their vision of a desired future to identify the constraints and opportunities to support voluntary private land conservation. The study was conducted in Uruguay, in a traditional cattle ranching cultural landscape, which is a national priority area for the conservation of biodiversity. In Uruguay, approximately 96% of the land is privately owned, while the National System of Protected Areas covers only ~1% of the land. Our results revealed that landowners had a close relationship with nature and considered themselves and their neighbours as local environmental stewards. Landowners were well aware of the importance of nature contributions to their livelihood and lifestyle and were concerned that rural exodus to urban areas and shrubland encroachment would negatively impact the social–ecological context they value and depend upon. Main needs of landowners to support biodiversity conservation were not primarily motivated by economic interests, but more related to the need for support that could enhance land management and social cohesion. Biodiversity conservation goals in this cultural landscape cannot be pursued in isolation from social and rural development goals. Addressing local needs based on already existing links between nature's contributions and people might help support biodiversity conservation in the area. Failing to understand the context and to recognize locally perceived problems could increase the risk of voluntary conservation failure. Our approach and lessons learned can provide insights to actionable research in other cultural landscapes globally. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

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Section: F I G U R Ementioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring landowners' perceptions, motivations and needs for voluntary conservation in a cultural landscape

et al. 2020

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“…The sustainability of these grazing systems is threatened by overgrazing, which results in poor economic results, deterioration of the natural grassland, increased erosion rates, reduction of the carbon stock and increase in greenhouse gas emissions per unit area and product (Altesor et al, 2005;Overbeck et al, 2007;Modernel et al, 2018). This process has also increased the vulnerability of these systems to drought events (Modernel et al, 2019). While measures for their ecological intensification do exist and prove technically viable, their wide adoption by farmers is still challenging, no less due to the aging of this farming population and the gradual disappearance of this traditional lifestyle.…”

Section: Regenerative Graze-based Livestock Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agroecology in Large Scale Farming—A Research Agenda

Tittonell¹,

Piñeiro²,

Garibaldi³

et al. 2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Agroecology promises a third way between common global agriculture tradeoffs such as food production and nature conservation, environmental sustainability and ecosystem services. However, most successful examples of mainstreaming agroecology come from smallholder, family agriculture, that represents only about 30% of the world agricultural area. Mainstreaming agroecology among large scale farmers is urgently needed, but it requires addressing specific questions in research, technology and policy development to support sustainable transitions. Here we take stock of the existing knowledge on some key aspects necessary to support agroecological transitions in large scale farming, considering two contrasting starting points: highly subsidized and heavily taxed agricultural contexts, represented here by the examples of Western Europe and temperate South America. We summarize existing knowledge and gaps around service crops, arthropod-mediated functions, landscape and watershed regulation, graze-based livestock, nature-inclusive landscapes, and policy mechanisms to support transitions. We propose a research agenda for agroecology in large scale farming organized in five domains: (i) Breeding for diversity, (ii) Scalable complexity, (iii) Managing cycles beyond fields and farms, (iv) Sharing the cultivated landscape, and (v) Co-innovation with farmers, value chains and policy makers. Agroecology may result in a renewed impetus in large scale farming, to attract the youth, foster clean technological innovation, and to promote a new generation of large-scale farmers that take pride in contributing to feeding the world while serving the planet and its people.

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“…Beyond global assessments on the effect of grazing management on soil carbon sequestration (e.g., Tanentzap and Coomes, 2012;Abdalla et al, 2018), studies in the Rio de la Plata region indicate that switching from native vegetation to sown pastures reduces soil carbon storage by more than 60% (Piñeiro et al, 2010), and water infiltration by almost 100% seriously affecting watershed regulation (floods, aquifer recharge) and soil erosion (e.g., Nosetto et al, 2012). Soils of native grasslands managed with high forage allowance (adjusted stocking rates over time-space) allow fast, resilient recovery of forage productivity after severe droughts (Modernel et al, 2019).…”

Section: Trade-offs Between Productivity and The Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond CO2: Multiple Ecosystem Services From Ecologically Intensive Grazing Landscapes of South America

Tittonell

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Sustainability assessments to inform the design of multifunctional grazing landscapes need to look beyond greenhouse gas emissions to simultaneously embrace other social and environmental criteria. Here I briefly examine trade-offs and synergies between the productivity of graze-based livestock systems and the environment, and share a few generic guidelines to design pathways for the ecological intensification of livestock systems following agroecological principles. I draw from experience on livestock farming in the Rio de la Plata Grassland Biome of South America (Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil). Livestock systems based on native grasslands in this region may have greater carbon footprints (13–29 kg CO2 eq. kg LW−1) than intensive grass-feedlot systems in the region (9–14 kg CO2 eq. kg LW−1) or the average range reported for OECD countries (c. 10–20 kg CO2 eq. kg LW−1) when calculated per unit product, but only 20% greater when expressed on an area basis. Yet they use less external energy (10x) or nitrogen inputs (5x) per kg live weight (LW) produced, provide ecosystem services of local and global importance, such as carbon storage, habitat protection for biodiversity, watershed regulation, clean water, food and textiles, livelihoods and local cultures, and provide better living conditions for grazing animals. Traditional graze-based systems are less economically attractive than intensive livestock or grain production and they are being replaced by such activities, with negative social and environmental consequences. An ecological intensification (EI) of graze-based livestock systems is urgently needed to ensure economic profits while minimising social-ecological trade-offs on multifunctional landscapes. Examples of such EI systems exist in the region that exhibit synergies between economic and environmental goals, but a broad and lasting transition towards sustainable multifunctional landscapes based on agroecological principles requires (co-)innovation at both technical and institutional levels.

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Grazing management for more resilient mixed livestock farming systems on native grasslands of southern South America

Cited by 29 publications

References 48 publications

Exploring landowners' perceptions, motivations and needs for voluntary conservation in a cultural landscape

Exploring landowners' perceptions, motivations and needs for voluntary conservation in a cultural landscape

Agroecology in Large Scale Farming—A Research Agenda

Beyond CO2: Multiple Ecosystem Services From Ecologically Intensive Grazing Landscapes of South America

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