Land-Use Intensification Trends in the Rio De La Plata Region of South America: Toward Specialization or Recoupling Crop and Livestock Production

Abstract

HIGHLIGHTS • Current intensification trends in the Rio de la Plata need urgent redirection. • Integrated crop-livestock systems reconcile food production with ecosystem services. • Case studies validate recoupling as a sustainable way to ecological intensification.

Intercropping legumes and intermediate wheatgrass increases forage yield, nutritive value, and profitability without reducing grain yields

“…The frequent tillage of soils and a lack of vegetation cover for prolonged periods have led to extensive soil erosion, soil carbon loss, and nutrient runoff into groundwater, among other problems, which demands the rethinking of the way humans produce food. Some novel approaches seek to diversify and perennialize cropping systems by reducing soil tillage (Crews and Rumsey, 2017), replacing fallow periods with service crops (Schipanski et al, 2014;Pinto et al, 2017), integrating crop and livestock systems (de Faccio Carvalho et al, 2021;Franco et al, 2021;Picasso et al, 2022), intercropping multifunctional species (Malézieux et al, 2009;Gaba et al, 2015) or including dual-purpose perennial crops in the agricultural rotations (Hunter et al, 2020b;Franco et al, 2021). Recent advances in domestication and breeding of perennial cereals for seed yield offer the opportunity to reintroduce perennial polycultures and regenerate components and processes of natural ecosystems to agroecosystems (Glover et al, 2010;Pimentel et al, 2012;Ryan et al, 2018).…”

Regional differences in nitrogen balance and nitrogen use efficiency in the rice–livestock system of Uruguay

“…Recoupling crops and livestock at least through the inclusion of annual forages for direct animal grazing between cash crops are being considered in the Rio de la Plata region of South America. Despite remaining incipient, regarding the total region area, diverse ecosystem services have been observed (i.e., soil restoration, nutrient cycling, better adaptation to climate variation) near after starting that management practice (De Faccio Carvalho et al, 2021). In contrast, the particular case of the Uruguayan ricelivestock system could be seen as an example of such a circular farming system, with the whole country's rice area integrated into a systematic pasture-livestock rotational scheme (García et al, 2009;Lanfranco et al, 2018).…”

Measured and modeled nitrogen balances in lowland rice-pasture rotations in temperate South America

“…For example, until recently rice production in Argentina, Paraguay and southern Brazil was predominantly a monoculture, shifting in the last decade to more complex systems with the inclusion of soybeans or short pastures with livestock (Denardin et al, 2020;Ribas et al, 2021;Macedo et al, 2022). This diversification has helped improve soil conditions, weed control, and farm income, though nutrient management still needs to be improved (De Faccio Carvalho et al, 2021).…”