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Integration of Crop and Livestock Production in Temperate Regions to Improve Agroecosystem Functioning, Ecosystem Services, and Human Nutrition and Health1
C H A P T E R
15 Integration of Crop and Livestock Production in Temperate Regions to Improve Agroecosystem Functioning, Ecosystem Services, and Human Nutrition and Health1 Scott L. Kronberg1, Julie Ryschawy2 1
USDA - Agricultural Research Service, Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory, Mandan, ND, United States; 2Universite de Toulouse, AGIR UMR 1248, INRA, INPT-ENSAT, Auzeville, France
INTRODUCTION After the many years of human existence, hopefully, most people including farmers would agree that the fundamental goals of foodproducing agriculture are (1) producing a variety of foods that provide the nourishment that children and adults need to mature properly, reproduce healthy offspring, and have maximum potential to live long, disease-free
lives and (2) do this without damaging our environment too much. However, our food production systems have evolved to specialize in growing foods, fibers, and other things that people need or want, and it is easy to forget and even ignore the two fundamental goals of agriculture (at great cost to our wellbeing) while producing just one or a few products with as little financial expense as possible. For example, prevalence of obesity continues to increase for
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Agroecosystem Diversity https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-811050-8.00015-7
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Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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American adults, with 40% obese in 2015e16, and progress in reducing stroke and heart disease in Americans has slowed. The great challenge of reaching the two fundamental goals is compounded as human populations and communities become larger, with most people specializing on other endeavors besides food production while consuming foods that only a few people and companies produce. Also, incomplete knowledge on how all aspects of human nutrition (and intake of nonnutrient compounds such as phthalates, steroid hormones, and pesticides in air or water) interact to affect our growth, reproduction, and health compounds the great challenge. So, it is not surprising that food provisioning systems in industrialized parts of the world have evolved into highly specialized systems that emphasize economies of scale and deemphasize interdependent relationships (Kirschenmann, 2008), while other highly specialized (and expensive) medical systems try to keep us healthy or at least alive. Consequently, the specialized food provisioning services are not necessarily concerned with providing all the macro- and micronutrients that people require (as well as healthful but nonnutrient phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables) for long and healthy lives nor seriously addressing all the negative environmental impacts of contemporary agriculture. Industrialized livestock production in temperate regions of the world and the complex trading and movement of animal products and nutrients among other regions have been criticized as major causes of environmental problems (Galloway et al., 2007; Steinfeld and Wassenaar, 2007). In respect to these and related consumer concerns, considerable numbers of people are now consuming meat-free lacto- or lacto-ovo vegetarian diets or even vegan diets, believing that these diets are more environmentally sustainable, kinder to animals, and more healthful for people. However, while diets with high amounts of animal products are likely not the ideal for sustainability, especially with the great
and growing number of people on Earth (Foley et al., 2011; Dumont et al., 2013; Garnett et al., 2013), arguments for animal productefree or reduced diets seldom if ever include plans for ecologically essential and proper recycling of macro- and micronutrients in plant-based foods that need to be carefully recycled from the soil to plants to people and possibly other animals and then back to the soil. This makes diverse diets including some animal-based foods to have more potential, if properly organized, to support more sustainable and ecologically viable food production because, unfortunately, it is easier now to recycle manure and urine from livestock than from people. Although it is known that some versions of agriculture have included some forms of relatively unsophisticated integration of crops and livestock for thousands of years, farming has had very significant negative environmental impacts (e.g., degradation of soil fertility from lack of proper nutrient recycling, soil erosion from tillage, and overgrazing by livestock) over the many centuries it has been practiced in various regions of the world (Hillel, 1991; Montgomery, 2007). These failures should make it very clear that mere coexistence of crops and livestock on a farm or interrelated group of farms is not sufficient. Still, improved forms of integration of crop and livestock production are more likely to be adaptable to sustainable agroecosystem functioning while providing more ecosystem services, compared to specialized, simpler and less diverse production systems, which have also been practiced by some farmers for at least the last 200 years (e.g., farming only tobacco or cotton in the early years of the United States) and probably for thousands elsewhere. So the focus of this chapter is on integrated crop-livestock production in temperate regions. The traditional form of crop-livestock production of the past centuries and more recent past was either what we now consider organic agriculture or nearly organic agriculture in that no or only a small amount of artificial pesticides,
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fertilizers, and genetically modified organisms were used in the farming operation. However, we need to keep in mind that currently nonorganic mixed crop-livestock production (at least in the United States and several other countries) can include the use of artificial fertilizer and pesticides such as the herbicide glyphosate for notill crop production, nonorganic insecticides for fly control on livestock, and genetically engineered glyphosate-tolerant corn and soybeans to aid in reducing weed problems with the herbicide glyphosate. We also need to keep in mind that traditional organic annual crop production has relied on soil tillage for weed control, and this makes the soil more vulnerable to wind and water erosion, hence the recent interest in organic crop production using no-tillage techniques. In this chapter, we will also argue that more ideal agriculture in respect to producing highly healthful food, which is more likely to support healthy children and adults and long disease-free lives, is probably a diverse and complex mixture of annual crops including grains, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, fruits, perennial tree crops (nuts and fruits), herbaceous forage crops, and a variety of small and large livestock species including fish. Obviously, this type of farming requires team efforts of highly knowledgeable and skilled farmers, and there are plenty of intelligent and energetic unemployed people in world now that could be trained to become highly skilled farming specialists and, contrary to popular thinking, not lead lives of drudgery but rather have interesting and satisfying lives (Kirschenmann, 2008).
INTEGRATING CROP AND LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION TO IMPROVE AGROECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING There have been several good reviews covering various advantages associated with integrated crop-livestock farming systems in the
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temperate region (Russelle et al., 2007; Sulc and Tracy, 2007; Wilkins, 2008; Bell et al., 2014; Lemaire et al., 2014; Soussana and Lemaire, 2014; Sulc and Franzluebbers, 2014). Essentially, the objective of these farming systems is for selfsufficiency of feedstuffs for the animals and maximum possible nutrient recycling between soil, plants, and animals within the farming unit, so nutrients are not lost from the farm’s soils, and nutrients are not imported into the farm unless they are deficient and needed in the farm’s soils. Crop-livestock integration is gaining renewed interest by scientists and policymakers because it has the potential to provide more ecosystem services such as provisioning of food, fiber, construction materials, and wildlife habitat, and regulating populations of pests, water quality, decomposition, and detoxification while also improving economic performance of farming. The specific advantages of integrated cropslivestock production systems include (but are not limited to) the following: (1) the option of feeding the crops produced on the farm to livestock produced on the farm without the added cost of transport and/or profit to a supplier of the feed, (2) less or no importing of expensive inputs such as pesticides, synthetic fertilizer, and livestock feed, which can also bring excess nutrients within the feed to the farm (e.g., nitrogenous and phosphorus compounds) that can become a costly environmental and economic problem (and poor nutrient management by not properly recycling a valuable nutrient back to its source), (3) use of excreta (feces and urine) from the livestock as a valuable source of nutrients, organic matter, microbes, and perhaps other constituents that improve soil fertility (Stukenholtz et al., 2002) rather than as a waste problem, as in many confined animal feeding operations, (4) use and conversion of crop residues/byproducts by livestock, (5) encouragement for producing perennial forages for livestock in rotation with annual crops with associated benefits for insect pollinators, birds, and other wildlife,
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(6) dual-purpose use (grazing) of cereals and brassicas for forage while vegetative then later harvesting seeds from these plants, (7) use of livestock for weed control in annual crop fields to reduce or eliminate herbicide spraying, (8) profitability in one or more aspects of a diverse crop-livestock farm when other aspects are less or not profitable (financial risk management), (9) readily available use of annual crops by livestock if yields or prices are too low for conventional harvesting, and (10) potentially less dependence on government payments to survive financially. There are also disadvantages including the potential for livestock traffic to compact soil for annual crop production as well as the extra knowledge and managerial requirements needed for success (Sulc and Franzluebbers, 2014), but we have tap-rooted cover crops such as forage radish and canola that can be grown to reduce compaction (bio-tillage), and there are groups of progressive farmers, at least in the United States and probably elsewhere, who are willing to teach and mentor farmers who are interested in become successful and sophisticated integrated crop-livestock producers.
INTEGRATING CROP AND LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION TO IMPROVE PROVISIONING OF HIGHER QUALITY FOOD Unfortunately, at this point in time in human evolution, producing a variety of foods that provide the nourishment that children and adults need to grow and reproduce successfully and have maximum potential to live long diseasefree lives is not one of the fundamental goals of industrialized agriculture because doing this is complicated and industrialized agriculture strives for simplicity (Mozaffarian and Ludwig, 2010; Ludwig, 2011). Provenza et al. (2015) have made a strong argument that people in industrialized counties, which are largely
located in temperate regions of the world, would be healthier consuming much fewer processed, fortified, and enriched foods from specialized and industrialized food production systems and eating much more diverse diets of whole plant and animal-based foods from animals that are also consuming a diverse diet of whole foods. Assuming their proposition is correct, which is similar to what others are suggesting (Bail et al., 2016), and many people in the industrialized world need to eat a greater diversity of non- or less-processed foods, then there is an obvious need to produce these foods, assuming more would people buy them, as appears to be the case in the United States and Europe. This presents an opportunity for integrated croplivestock system to become more diverse by adding and mixing more species of livestock and more types of crops together, including trees (Bell et al., 2014; Sulc and Franzluebbers, 2014), which could produce nuts, fruit, wood, forage, improve soil fertility, modify the weather for other organisms (e.g., shade for livestock on hot days), and possibly increase carbon sequestration (Udawatta and Jose, 2012). When integrated with pasture and annual crop production, this provides the ecosystem services of food provisioning and pollination because there is habitat for a variety of insects including various pollinator species (Shepard, 2013). Grazing pigs, turkeys, and chickens can also provide important ecosystem services including soil fertilization, insect and weed control, and food (Shepard, 2013). Although chicken production with pasture-based systems is becoming more common (Sossidou et al., 2011), integration of small herbivorous livestock, such as geese and rabbits, needs more consideration for integrated crop-livestock systems because of their ability to compete with granivorous/omnivorous chickens in respect to reproductive efficiency of females and growth rate of young animals (Large, 1973). Plus, free-ranging geese can be useful for control of some weeds and insect pests (Clark and Gage, 1996), and rabbits can be raised
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TOWARD MORE AGROECOLOGICAL INTEGRATED CROP-LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS
effectively on grassland like ruminant livestock (Martin et al., 2016). Finally, some farms with adequate water supply have the ability to integrate crops with fish and ducks or fish, pigs, and cattle production into efficient and highly productive integrated crop-livestock production systems (Furuno, cited in Kirschenmann, 2007; Bonaudo et al., 2014).
INTEGRATION RATHER THAN JUST COEXISTENCE OF CROPS AND LIVESTOCK The ability of integrated crop-livestock production systems to provide multiple provisioning and regulating ecosystem services is a strong argument for using them. But in reality, it is not so simple. A macro-scale analysis led in the EUFP7 Cantogether project (Chambaut et al., 2015) highlighted large variability in mixed crop-livestock farms in terms of environmental performance. Moraine et al. (2014) defined a gradient of mixed farms according to the level of integration between crops and livestock in time and space (Fig. 15.1). In some mixed farms, a simple coexistence between crops and livestock was observed, with juxtaposed units interacting only through the market. At the opposite of the gradient, an agronomic integration allowed self-sufficiency of animal feeding through the produced crops and grasslands and fertilization of parcels with animal manure. Evaluation of mixed farms by their level of integration between crops and livestock indicated that the more integrated farms were, the more environmentally friendly they were. This framework could be applied for regional integration between crop and livestock farmers. The limited use of external inputs has benefits for the environment and would have economic benefits balancing macro-scale analysis (Chambaut et al., 2015; European Commission, 2015), according to which integrated crop-livestock
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system did not have as good of economic results as specialized farms. Macro-scale studies on European Commission data highlighted that all mixed farms did not achieve the potential expected for sustainability in respect to specialized farms. According to Chambaut et al. (2015) the more integrated farms had fewer negative impacts on the environment. Only specific integrated crop-livestock systems should therefore be considered more ecologically effective systems.
TOWARD MORE AGROECOLOGICAL INTEGRATED CROP-LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS Integration between crops and livestock is an opportunity to design more effective agroecological systems, in terms of enhancing synergies between components to favor higher environmental and economic performances. Considering that coexistence between crops and livestock was not allowing effective agroecological systems, Bonaudo et al. (2014) analyzed how agroecological principles could be adapted to integrated crop-livestock systems to redesign and improve the resilience, self-sufficiency, productivity, and efficiency of integration between crops and livestock. Considering the classification of Schiere et al. (2002), they considered that integration between crops and livestock was a possible key to moving from high external input agriculture (HEIA) to a new agroecological agriculture (so-called new conservation agriculture). They pointed out that new agroecologically integrated crop-livestock systems should benefit from diversified production and increased interactions between subsystems to offset trade-offs between agricultural production and environmental impacts observed in many integrated crop-livestock systems around the world (Bonaudo et al., 2014). Considering the trajectories of farms moving from old forms of integrated agriculture without inputs to
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FIGURE 15.1 Generic representation of four crop-livestock system archetypes, distinguished according to the degree of spatial and temporal coordination between three spheres: crops (blue [gray in print version]), grasslands (green [light gray in print version]), and livestock (red [dark gray in print version]) either at farm or territorial level (Moraine, 2015). Each type has an illustrative name, and key drivers of integration necessary to pass from one type to another are noted. The “global coexistence type” corresponds to exchanges of grain, forage, straw, and manure between specialized farms, regulated by the markets. This type of spatially segregated coordination strongly limits expression of ecological benefits of crop-livestock integration. The “complementarity” type involves crop systems designed to produce the quantity and quality of crop products required for livestock production (in concentrates, forage, straw, etc.) and to use livestock manure as fertilizer. There is only a little spatial interaction among the three spheres to enhance the ecological processes and services. In the “farm-level (local) synergy,” stronger temporal and spatial interaction among the three spheres allows stubble grazing, temporary grasslands in rotations, and intercropped forages. This farming system is designed to reduce input use by enhancing a wide range of ecosystem services at the local scale (e.g., soil quality enhancement, water and erosion regulation, maintaining biodiversity with landscape heterogeneity). Finally, in the “territory-level synergy,” strong stakeholder coordination optimizes resource allocation and creates local diversified marketing chains that are adapted to specific characteristics of the territory. Exchanges within and between farms are organized to decrease input use and benefit farm-to-landscape level ecosystem services.
high-input agriculture, Teillard et al. (2015) argued that agroecologically integrated croplivestock systems could be a possible solution to go beyond current systems in increasing
agricultural production in respect to the output per hectare without increasing the intensity, which was shown to have negative effects on biodiversity (Fig. 15.2).
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UNDERSTANDING THE DRIVERS
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FIGURE 15.2 Trajectories of different integrated crop-livestock systems (ICLS) in the set of currently feasible systems. HEIA and LEIA stand for High and Low External Input Agriculture, the two extremes on a gradient of old forms of ICLS. Arrows 1 and 2 illustrate the dynamics on the continuum of systems between the two extremes: arrow 1 corresponds to conventional intensification, and arrow 2 corresponds to ecologization. Red arrows (dark gray in print version) illustrate Amazonian and the RAD (Reseau Agriculture Durable; a network of sustainably managed French farms) case studies. Arrow 3 corresponds to orthogonal dynamics: agroecological transition that does not necessarily optimize production but decreases the input/production ratio. Agroecological ICLS could be a way to go beyond the current feasible systems in increasing the agricultural production without increasing the intensity, which has negative effects on biodiversity. New agroecological ICLS could thus be an opportunity to manage trade-offs between production and the environment while enhancing ecosystem services without declining production levels.
UNDERSTANDING THE DRIVERS AND ENCOURAGING THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOPHISTICATED INTEGRATED CROP-LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS Even with potential advantages of agroecological integrated crop-livestock systems the current drivers in the political and market context are not favoring transitions toward such systems. For example, in Europe, despite a renewed interest, mixed farming systems are still declining and are only about 14% of agricultural systems across the European Union (European Commission, 2015). As mentioned before, most of the current mixed farms in Europe are just coexistence between crops and livestock with few additional
advantages with regard to ecosystem services. Specialization and intensification of farms and regions in Europe has been strongly driven by economics and politics (Veysset et al., 2005). Global markets have favored cash crops, with high prices for cereals that encouraged abandonment of livestock when the soil and climatic conditions were favorable to cash crops. The first pillar of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) helped with investments to modernize agriculture, such as for irrigation and land management improvements, which favored the intensification and specialization of cash crop production. This has had a drastic impact on mixed farming even with agro-environmental subsidies of the second pillar of CAP encouraging farmers to maintain grasslands and therefore livestock on their farm
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(Ryschawy et al., 2013). As a result of economies of scale, farm size increased all over the European Union, and the agricultural workforce declined. The current status of integrated crop-livestock systems in developed countries is particularly worrying with regard to labor opportunity costs. When farmers quit livestock or crop production due to lack of suitably skilled labor, reintroducing crop-livestock integration later at the farm scale is no longer a reasonable possibility, as the skills needed are no longer available (Peyraud et al., 2014; Ryschawy et al., 2013). Therefore, regional integration between crops and livestock could potentially be developed through exchanges between specialized crop and livestock farms (Moraine et al., 2014). These exchanges could have similar potential to provide more ecosystem services. Solutions for problems at the farm scale could be found through this regional approach, but other important problems arise (Moraine, 2015; Ryschawy et al., 2017). Coordination between farmers highlights new constraints that have to be addressed and would likely be more complex to deal with than farm-level approaches (e.g., logistics to transport and store feed and manure, trade-offs between individual and collective performances). Considering the past and current drivers favoring specialization, new policies could be developed to encourage the readoption or maintenance of mixed systems both at the farm and local scale. These policies could be considering, for instance, autonomy of farms for inputs, favoring recycling of nitrogen, phosphorous, and other nutrients within the farm. Agro-environmental measures could favor maintaining seminatural elements in a more incentivized way, as is the case in the current second pillar of the CAP. Finally, some payment for ecosystem services could be developed considering improvements in soil quality through diversified crop rotations, proper use of manure, or local self-sufficiency in inputs. These environmentally beneficial practices could be encouraged by public policies and/or paid for by
consumers. Consumers already have the choice to purchase organically produced instead of conventionally produced food, so they could be offered the choice of purchasing food from state-of-the-art integrated crop-livestock farms, then indirectly pay for ecosystem services, through purchases of foods with specific certifications and labels (Simons, 2015). In summary, sophisticated integrated croplivestock production systems offer many advantages for reducing the environmental impact of producing a high quantity of healthful, nutritious food, and the diversity of crops and livestock produced is important in several respects, but not the only aspects to consider. The variety of ecosystems services provided by these systems is important too, as is the biodiversity they support. To adjust to the high environmental performance expected, these systems need to be truly integrated to maximize recycling of nutrients. There are some sophisticated integrations of crop and livestock production systems in temperate regions of the world that are currently unique. The unique systems likely have improved agroecosystem functioning, provide more ecosystem services, and in many cases more profitability for farmers, especially if they market their products directly to consumers who are willing to pay to support farming practices that externalize fewer of their costs to the environment.
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Ludwig, D.S., 2011. Technology, diet, and the burden of chronic disease. Journal of the American Medical Association 305, 1352e1353. Martin, G., Duprat, A., Goby, J.-P., Theau, J.-P., Roinsard, A., Descombes, M., Legendre, H., Gidenne, T., 2016. Herbage intake regulation and growth of rabbits raised on grasslands: back to basics and looking forward. Animal 10, 1609e1618. Montgomery, D.R., 2007. Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations. University of California Press, Berkeley. Moraine, M., Duru, M., Nicholas, P., Leterme, P., Therond, O., 2014. Farming system design for innovative crop-livestock integration in Europe. Animal 8, 1204e1217. Moraine, M., 2015. Conception et evaluation de systemes de production integrant cultures et elevage a l’echelle du territoire (Ph.D. thesis, Toulouse, France), p. 200. Mozaffarian, D., Ludwig, D.S., 2010. Dietary guidelines in the 21st century e a time for food. Journal of the American Medical Association 304, 681e682. Peyraud, J.-L., Taboada, M., Delaby, L., 2014. Integrated crop and livestock systems in Western Europe and South America: a review. European Journal of Agronomy 57, 31e42. Provenza, F.D., Meuret, M., Gregorini, P., 2015. Our landscapes, our livestock, ourselves: restoring broken linkages among plants, herbivores, and humans with diets that nourish and satiate. Appetite 95, 500e519. Russelle, M.P., Entz, M.H., Franzluebbers, A.J., 2007. Reconsidering integrated crop-livestock systems in North America. Agronomy Journal 99, 325e334. Ryschawy, J., Choisis, N., Choisis, J.P., Gibon, A., 2013. Paths to last in mixed crop-livestock farming: lessons from an assessment of farm trajectories of change. Animal 7, 673e681. Ryschawy, J., Martin, G., Moraine, M., Duru, M., Therond, O., 2017. Designing crop-livestock integration at different levels: toward new agroecological models? Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems 108, 5e20. Schiere, J.B., Ibrahim, M.N.M., van Keulen, H., 2002. The role of livestock for sustainability in mixed farming: criteria and scenario studies under varying resource allocation. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 90, 139e153. Shepard, M., 2013. Restoration Agriculture. Acres U.S.A., Austin. Simons, L., 2015. Changing the Food Game: Market Transformation Strategies for Sustainable Agriculture. Greenleaf Publishing, Sheffield. Sossidou, E.N., Dal Bosco, A., Elson, H.A., Fontes, C.M.G.A., 2011. Pasture-based systems for poultry production: implications and perspectives. World’s Poultry Science Association 67, 47e58.
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Soussana, J.-F., Lemaire, G., 2014. Coupling carbon and nitrogen cycles for environmentally sustainable intensification of grasslands and crop-livestock systems. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 190, 9e17. Steinfeld, H., Wassenaar, T., 2007. The role of livestock production in carbon and nitrogen cycles. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 32, 271e294. Stukenholtz, P.D., Koenig, R.T., Hole, D.J., Miller, B.E., 2002. Partitioning the nutrient and nonnutrient contributions of compost to dryland-organic wheat. Compost Science and Utilization 10, 238e243. Sulc, R.M., Franzluebbers, A.J., 2014. Exploring integrated crop-livestock systems in different ecoregions of the United States. European Journal of Agronomy 57, 21e30. Sulc, R.M., Tracy, B.F., 2007. Integrated crop-livestock systems in the U.S. corn belt. Agronomy Journal 99, 335e345. Teillard, F., Jiguet, F., Tichit, M., 2015. The response of farmland bird communities to agricultural intensity as influenced by its spatial aggregation. PLoS One. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0119674. Udawatta, R.P., Jose, S., 2012. Agroforestry strategies to sequester carbon in temperate North America. Agroforestry Systems 86, 225e242. Veysset, P., Bebin, D., Lherm, M., 2005. Adaptation to Agenda 2000 (CAP reform) and optimisation of the
farming system of French suckler cattle farms in the Charolais area: a model-based study. Agricultural Systems 83, 179e202. Wilkins, R.J., 2008. Eco-efficient approaches to land management: a case for increased integration of crop and animal production systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363, 517e525.
Further Reading Jones, D.L., Cross, P., Withers, P.J.A., DeLuca, T.H., Robinson, D.A., Quilliam, R.S., Harris, I.M., Chadwick, D.R., Edward-Jones, G., 2013. Nutrient stripping: the global disparity between food security and soil nutrient stocks. Journal of Applied Ecology 50, 851e862. Knez, M., Graham, R.D., 2013. The impact of micronutrient deficiencies in agricultural soils and crops on the nutritional health of humans. In: Selinus, O., Alloway, B., Centeno, J.A., Finkelman, R.B., Fuge, R., Lindh, U., Smedley, P. (Eds.), Essentials of Medical Geology, Revised Edition. Springer ScienceþBusiness Media, Dordrecht, pp. 517e533. National Research Council, 2010. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
IV. DIVERSIFIED AGROECOSYSTEMS AT FARM LEVELS FOR MORE SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE PRODUCTION?
15 Integration of Crop and Livestock Production in Temperate Regions to Improve Agroecosystem Functioning, Ecosystem Services, and Human Nutrition and Health1 Scott L. Kronberg1, Julie Ryschawy2 1
USDA - Agricultural Research Service, Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory, Mandan, ND, United States; 2Universite de Toulouse, AGIR UMR 1248, INRA, INPT-ENSAT, Auzeville, France
INTRODUCTION After the many years of human existence, hopefully, most people including farmers would agree that the fundamental goals of foodproducing agriculture are (1) producing a variety of foods that provide the nourishment that children and adults need to mature properly, reproduce healthy offspring, and have maximum potential to live long, disease-free
lives and (2) do this without damaging our environment too much. However, our food production systems have evolved to specialize in growing foods, fibers, and other things that people need or want, and it is easy to forget and even ignore the two fundamental goals of agriculture (at great cost to our wellbeing) while producing just one or a few products with as little financial expense as possible. For example, prevalence of obesity continues to increase for
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Mandatory insert for USDA-ARS employees: The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, family status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or part of an individual’s income is derived from any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
Agroecosystem Diversity https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-811050-8.00015-7
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Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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American adults, with 40% obese in 2015e16, and progress in reducing stroke and heart disease in Americans has slowed. The great challenge of reaching the two fundamental goals is compounded as human populations and communities become larger, with most people specializing on other endeavors besides food production while consuming foods that only a few people and companies produce. Also, incomplete knowledge on how all aspects of human nutrition (and intake of nonnutrient compounds such as phthalates, steroid hormones, and pesticides in air or water) interact to affect our growth, reproduction, and health compounds the great challenge. So, it is not surprising that food provisioning systems in industrialized parts of the world have evolved into highly specialized systems that emphasize economies of scale and deemphasize interdependent relationships (Kirschenmann, 2008), while other highly specialized (and expensive) medical systems try to keep us healthy or at least alive. Consequently, the specialized food provisioning services are not necessarily concerned with providing all the macro- and micronutrients that people require (as well as healthful but nonnutrient phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables) for long and healthy lives nor seriously addressing all the negative environmental impacts of contemporary agriculture. Industrialized livestock production in temperate regions of the world and the complex trading and movement of animal products and nutrients among other regions have been criticized as major causes of environmental problems (Galloway et al., 2007; Steinfeld and Wassenaar, 2007). In respect to these and related consumer concerns, considerable numbers of people are now consuming meat-free lacto- or lacto-ovo vegetarian diets or even vegan diets, believing that these diets are more environmentally sustainable, kinder to animals, and more healthful for people. However, while diets with high amounts of animal products are likely not the ideal for sustainability, especially with the great
and growing number of people on Earth (Foley et al., 2011; Dumont et al., 2013; Garnett et al., 2013), arguments for animal productefree or reduced diets seldom if ever include plans for ecologically essential and proper recycling of macro- and micronutrients in plant-based foods that need to be carefully recycled from the soil to plants to people and possibly other animals and then back to the soil. This makes diverse diets including some animal-based foods to have more potential, if properly organized, to support more sustainable and ecologically viable food production because, unfortunately, it is easier now to recycle manure and urine from livestock than from people. Although it is known that some versions of agriculture have included some forms of relatively unsophisticated integration of crops and livestock for thousands of years, farming has had very significant negative environmental impacts (e.g., degradation of soil fertility from lack of proper nutrient recycling, soil erosion from tillage, and overgrazing by livestock) over the many centuries it has been practiced in various regions of the world (Hillel, 1991; Montgomery, 2007). These failures should make it very clear that mere coexistence of crops and livestock on a farm or interrelated group of farms is not sufficient. Still, improved forms of integration of crop and livestock production are more likely to be adaptable to sustainable agroecosystem functioning while providing more ecosystem services, compared to specialized, simpler and less diverse production systems, which have also been practiced by some farmers for at least the last 200 years (e.g., farming only tobacco or cotton in the early years of the United States) and probably for thousands elsewhere. So the focus of this chapter is on integrated crop-livestock production in temperate regions. The traditional form of crop-livestock production of the past centuries and more recent past was either what we now consider organic agriculture or nearly organic agriculture in that no or only a small amount of artificial pesticides,
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fertilizers, and genetically modified organisms were used in the farming operation. However, we need to keep in mind that currently nonorganic mixed crop-livestock production (at least in the United States and several other countries) can include the use of artificial fertilizer and pesticides such as the herbicide glyphosate for notill crop production, nonorganic insecticides for fly control on livestock, and genetically engineered glyphosate-tolerant corn and soybeans to aid in reducing weed problems with the herbicide glyphosate. We also need to keep in mind that traditional organic annual crop production has relied on soil tillage for weed control, and this makes the soil more vulnerable to wind and water erosion, hence the recent interest in organic crop production using no-tillage techniques. In this chapter, we will also argue that more ideal agriculture in respect to producing highly healthful food, which is more likely to support healthy children and adults and long disease-free lives, is probably a diverse and complex mixture of annual crops including grains, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, fruits, perennial tree crops (nuts and fruits), herbaceous forage crops, and a variety of small and large livestock species including fish. Obviously, this type of farming requires team efforts of highly knowledgeable and skilled farmers, and there are plenty of intelligent and energetic unemployed people in world now that could be trained to become highly skilled farming specialists and, contrary to popular thinking, not lead lives of drudgery but rather have interesting and satisfying lives (Kirschenmann, 2008).
INTEGRATING CROP AND LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION TO IMPROVE AGROECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING There have been several good reviews covering various advantages associated with integrated crop-livestock farming systems in the
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temperate region (Russelle et al., 2007; Sulc and Tracy, 2007; Wilkins, 2008; Bell et al., 2014; Lemaire et al., 2014; Soussana and Lemaire, 2014; Sulc and Franzluebbers, 2014). Essentially, the objective of these farming systems is for selfsufficiency of feedstuffs for the animals and maximum possible nutrient recycling between soil, plants, and animals within the farming unit, so nutrients are not lost from the farm’s soils, and nutrients are not imported into the farm unless they are deficient and needed in the farm’s soils. Crop-livestock integration is gaining renewed interest by scientists and policymakers because it has the potential to provide more ecosystem services such as provisioning of food, fiber, construction materials, and wildlife habitat, and regulating populations of pests, water quality, decomposition, and detoxification while also improving economic performance of farming. The specific advantages of integrated cropslivestock production systems include (but are not limited to) the following: (1) the option of feeding the crops produced on the farm to livestock produced on the farm without the added cost of transport and/or profit to a supplier of the feed, (2) less or no importing of expensive inputs such as pesticides, synthetic fertilizer, and livestock feed, which can also bring excess nutrients within the feed to the farm (e.g., nitrogenous and phosphorus compounds) that can become a costly environmental and economic problem (and poor nutrient management by not properly recycling a valuable nutrient back to its source), (3) use of excreta (feces and urine) from the livestock as a valuable source of nutrients, organic matter, microbes, and perhaps other constituents that improve soil fertility (Stukenholtz et al., 2002) rather than as a waste problem, as in many confined animal feeding operations, (4) use and conversion of crop residues/byproducts by livestock, (5) encouragement for producing perennial forages for livestock in rotation with annual crops with associated benefits for insect pollinators, birds, and other wildlife,
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(6) dual-purpose use (grazing) of cereals and brassicas for forage while vegetative then later harvesting seeds from these plants, (7) use of livestock for weed control in annual crop fields to reduce or eliminate herbicide spraying, (8) profitability in one or more aspects of a diverse crop-livestock farm when other aspects are less or not profitable (financial risk management), (9) readily available use of annual crops by livestock if yields or prices are too low for conventional harvesting, and (10) potentially less dependence on government payments to survive financially. There are also disadvantages including the potential for livestock traffic to compact soil for annual crop production as well as the extra knowledge and managerial requirements needed for success (Sulc and Franzluebbers, 2014), but we have tap-rooted cover crops such as forage radish and canola that can be grown to reduce compaction (bio-tillage), and there are groups of progressive farmers, at least in the United States and probably elsewhere, who are willing to teach and mentor farmers who are interested in become successful and sophisticated integrated crop-livestock producers.
INTEGRATING CROP AND LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION TO IMPROVE PROVISIONING OF HIGHER QUALITY FOOD Unfortunately, at this point in time in human evolution, producing a variety of foods that provide the nourishment that children and adults need to grow and reproduce successfully and have maximum potential to live long diseasefree lives is not one of the fundamental goals of industrialized agriculture because doing this is complicated and industrialized agriculture strives for simplicity (Mozaffarian and Ludwig, 2010; Ludwig, 2011). Provenza et al. (2015) have made a strong argument that people in industrialized counties, which are largely
located in temperate regions of the world, would be healthier consuming much fewer processed, fortified, and enriched foods from specialized and industrialized food production systems and eating much more diverse diets of whole plant and animal-based foods from animals that are also consuming a diverse diet of whole foods. Assuming their proposition is correct, which is similar to what others are suggesting (Bail et al., 2016), and many people in the industrialized world need to eat a greater diversity of non- or less-processed foods, then there is an obvious need to produce these foods, assuming more would people buy them, as appears to be the case in the United States and Europe. This presents an opportunity for integrated croplivestock system to become more diverse by adding and mixing more species of livestock and more types of crops together, including trees (Bell et al., 2014; Sulc and Franzluebbers, 2014), which could produce nuts, fruit, wood, forage, improve soil fertility, modify the weather for other organisms (e.g., shade for livestock on hot days), and possibly increase carbon sequestration (Udawatta and Jose, 2012). When integrated with pasture and annual crop production, this provides the ecosystem services of food provisioning and pollination because there is habitat for a variety of insects including various pollinator species (Shepard, 2013). Grazing pigs, turkeys, and chickens can also provide important ecosystem services including soil fertilization, insect and weed control, and food (Shepard, 2013). Although chicken production with pasture-based systems is becoming more common (Sossidou et al., 2011), integration of small herbivorous livestock, such as geese and rabbits, needs more consideration for integrated crop-livestock systems because of their ability to compete with granivorous/omnivorous chickens in respect to reproductive efficiency of females and growth rate of young animals (Large, 1973). Plus, free-ranging geese can be useful for control of some weeds and insect pests (Clark and Gage, 1996), and rabbits can be raised
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TOWARD MORE AGROECOLOGICAL INTEGRATED CROP-LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS
effectively on grassland like ruminant livestock (Martin et al., 2016). Finally, some farms with adequate water supply have the ability to integrate crops with fish and ducks or fish, pigs, and cattle production into efficient and highly productive integrated crop-livestock production systems (Furuno, cited in Kirschenmann, 2007; Bonaudo et al., 2014).
INTEGRATION RATHER THAN JUST COEXISTENCE OF CROPS AND LIVESTOCK The ability of integrated crop-livestock production systems to provide multiple provisioning and regulating ecosystem services is a strong argument for using them. But in reality, it is not so simple. A macro-scale analysis led in the EUFP7 Cantogether project (Chambaut et al., 2015) highlighted large variability in mixed crop-livestock farms in terms of environmental performance. Moraine et al. (2014) defined a gradient of mixed farms according to the level of integration between crops and livestock in time and space (Fig. 15.1). In some mixed farms, a simple coexistence between crops and livestock was observed, with juxtaposed units interacting only through the market. At the opposite of the gradient, an agronomic integration allowed self-sufficiency of animal feeding through the produced crops and grasslands and fertilization of parcels with animal manure. Evaluation of mixed farms by their level of integration between crops and livestock indicated that the more integrated farms were, the more environmentally friendly they were. This framework could be applied for regional integration between crop and livestock farmers. The limited use of external inputs has benefits for the environment and would have economic benefits balancing macro-scale analysis (Chambaut et al., 2015; European Commission, 2015), according to which integrated crop-livestock
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system did not have as good of economic results as specialized farms. Macro-scale studies on European Commission data highlighted that all mixed farms did not achieve the potential expected for sustainability in respect to specialized farms. According to Chambaut et al. (2015) the more integrated farms had fewer negative impacts on the environment. Only specific integrated crop-livestock systems should therefore be considered more ecologically effective systems.
TOWARD MORE AGROECOLOGICAL INTEGRATED CROP-LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS Integration between crops and livestock is an opportunity to design more effective agroecological systems, in terms of enhancing synergies between components to favor higher environmental and economic performances. Considering that coexistence between crops and livestock was not allowing effective agroecological systems, Bonaudo et al. (2014) analyzed how agroecological principles could be adapted to integrated crop-livestock systems to redesign and improve the resilience, self-sufficiency, productivity, and efficiency of integration between crops and livestock. Considering the classification of Schiere et al. (2002), they considered that integration between crops and livestock was a possible key to moving from high external input agriculture (HEIA) to a new agroecological agriculture (so-called new conservation agriculture). They pointed out that new agroecologically integrated crop-livestock systems should benefit from diversified production and increased interactions between subsystems to offset trade-offs between agricultural production and environmental impacts observed in many integrated crop-livestock systems around the world (Bonaudo et al., 2014). Considering the trajectories of farms moving from old forms of integrated agriculture without inputs to
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FIGURE 15.1 Generic representation of four crop-livestock system archetypes, distinguished according to the degree of spatial and temporal coordination between three spheres: crops (blue [gray in print version]), grasslands (green [light gray in print version]), and livestock (red [dark gray in print version]) either at farm or territorial level (Moraine, 2015). Each type has an illustrative name, and key drivers of integration necessary to pass from one type to another are noted. The “global coexistence type” corresponds to exchanges of grain, forage, straw, and manure between specialized farms, regulated by the markets. This type of spatially segregated coordination strongly limits expression of ecological benefits of crop-livestock integration. The “complementarity” type involves crop systems designed to produce the quantity and quality of crop products required for livestock production (in concentrates, forage, straw, etc.) and to use livestock manure as fertilizer. There is only a little spatial interaction among the three spheres to enhance the ecological processes and services. In the “farm-level (local) synergy,” stronger temporal and spatial interaction among the three spheres allows stubble grazing, temporary grasslands in rotations, and intercropped forages. This farming system is designed to reduce input use by enhancing a wide range of ecosystem services at the local scale (e.g., soil quality enhancement, water and erosion regulation, maintaining biodiversity with landscape heterogeneity). Finally, in the “territory-level synergy,” strong stakeholder coordination optimizes resource allocation and creates local diversified marketing chains that are adapted to specific characteristics of the territory. Exchanges within and between farms are organized to decrease input use and benefit farm-to-landscape level ecosystem services.
high-input agriculture, Teillard et al. (2015) argued that agroecologically integrated croplivestock systems could be a possible solution to go beyond current systems in increasing
agricultural production in respect to the output per hectare without increasing the intensity, which was shown to have negative effects on biodiversity (Fig. 15.2).
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UNDERSTANDING THE DRIVERS
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FIGURE 15.2 Trajectories of different integrated crop-livestock systems (ICLS) in the set of currently feasible systems. HEIA and LEIA stand for High and Low External Input Agriculture, the two extremes on a gradient of old forms of ICLS. Arrows 1 and 2 illustrate the dynamics on the continuum of systems between the two extremes: arrow 1 corresponds to conventional intensification, and arrow 2 corresponds to ecologization. Red arrows (dark gray in print version) illustrate Amazonian and the RAD (Reseau Agriculture Durable; a network of sustainably managed French farms) case studies. Arrow 3 corresponds to orthogonal dynamics: agroecological transition that does not necessarily optimize production but decreases the input/production ratio. Agroecological ICLS could be a way to go beyond the current feasible systems in increasing the agricultural production without increasing the intensity, which has negative effects on biodiversity. New agroecological ICLS could thus be an opportunity to manage trade-offs between production and the environment while enhancing ecosystem services without declining production levels.
UNDERSTANDING THE DRIVERS AND ENCOURAGING THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOPHISTICATED INTEGRATED CROP-LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS Even with potential advantages of agroecological integrated crop-livestock systems the current drivers in the political and market context are not favoring transitions toward such systems. For example, in Europe, despite a renewed interest, mixed farming systems are still declining and are only about 14% of agricultural systems across the European Union (European Commission, 2015). As mentioned before, most of the current mixed farms in Europe are just coexistence between crops and livestock with few additional
advantages with regard to ecosystem services. Specialization and intensification of farms and regions in Europe has been strongly driven by economics and politics (Veysset et al., 2005). Global markets have favored cash crops, with high prices for cereals that encouraged abandonment of livestock when the soil and climatic conditions were favorable to cash crops. The first pillar of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) helped with investments to modernize agriculture, such as for irrigation and land management improvements, which favored the intensification and specialization of cash crop production. This has had a drastic impact on mixed farming even with agro-environmental subsidies of the second pillar of CAP encouraging farmers to maintain grasslands and therefore livestock on their farm
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(Ryschawy et al., 2013). As a result of economies of scale, farm size increased all over the European Union, and the agricultural workforce declined. The current status of integrated crop-livestock systems in developed countries is particularly worrying with regard to labor opportunity costs. When farmers quit livestock or crop production due to lack of suitably skilled labor, reintroducing crop-livestock integration later at the farm scale is no longer a reasonable possibility, as the skills needed are no longer available (Peyraud et al., 2014; Ryschawy et al., 2013). Therefore, regional integration between crops and livestock could potentially be developed through exchanges between specialized crop and livestock farms (Moraine et al., 2014). These exchanges could have similar potential to provide more ecosystem services. Solutions for problems at the farm scale could be found through this regional approach, but other important problems arise (Moraine, 2015; Ryschawy et al., 2017). Coordination between farmers highlights new constraints that have to be addressed and would likely be more complex to deal with than farm-level approaches (e.g., logistics to transport and store feed and manure, trade-offs between individual and collective performances). Considering the past and current drivers favoring specialization, new policies could be developed to encourage the readoption or maintenance of mixed systems both at the farm and local scale. These policies could be considering, for instance, autonomy of farms for inputs, favoring recycling of nitrogen, phosphorous, and other nutrients within the farm. Agro-environmental measures could favor maintaining seminatural elements in a more incentivized way, as is the case in the current second pillar of the CAP. Finally, some payment for ecosystem services could be developed considering improvements in soil quality through diversified crop rotations, proper use of manure, or local self-sufficiency in inputs. These environmentally beneficial practices could be encouraged by public policies and/or paid for by
consumers. Consumers already have the choice to purchase organically produced instead of conventionally produced food, so they could be offered the choice of purchasing food from state-of-the-art integrated crop-livestock farms, then indirectly pay for ecosystem services, through purchases of foods with specific certifications and labels (Simons, 2015). In summary, sophisticated integrated croplivestock production systems offer many advantages for reducing the environmental impact of producing a high quantity of healthful, nutritious food, and the diversity of crops and livestock produced is important in several respects, but not the only aspects to consider. The variety of ecosystems services provided by these systems is important too, as is the biodiversity they support. To adjust to the high environmental performance expected, these systems need to be truly integrated to maximize recycling of nutrients. There are some sophisticated integrations of crop and livestock production systems in temperate regions of the world that are currently unique. The unique systems likely have improved agroecosystem functioning, provide more ecosystem services, and in many cases more profitability for farmers, especially if they market their products directly to consumers who are willing to pay to support farming practices that externalize fewer of their costs to the environment.
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Ludwig, D.S., 2011. Technology, diet, and the burden of chronic disease. Journal of the American Medical Association 305, 1352e1353. Martin, G., Duprat, A., Goby, J.-P., Theau, J.-P., Roinsard, A., Descombes, M., Legendre, H., Gidenne, T., 2016. Herbage intake regulation and growth of rabbits raised on grasslands: back to basics and looking forward. Animal 10, 1609e1618. Montgomery, D.R., 2007. Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations. University of California Press, Berkeley. Moraine, M., Duru, M., Nicholas, P., Leterme, P., Therond, O., 2014. Farming system design for innovative crop-livestock integration in Europe. Animal 8, 1204e1217. Moraine, M., 2015. Conception et evaluation de systemes de production integrant cultures et elevage a l’echelle du territoire (Ph.D. thesis, Toulouse, France), p. 200. Mozaffarian, D., Ludwig, D.S., 2010. Dietary guidelines in the 21st century e a time for food. Journal of the American Medical Association 304, 681e682. Peyraud, J.-L., Taboada, M., Delaby, L., 2014. Integrated crop and livestock systems in Western Europe and South America: a review. European Journal of Agronomy 57, 31e42. Provenza, F.D., Meuret, M., Gregorini, P., 2015. Our landscapes, our livestock, ourselves: restoring broken linkages among plants, herbivores, and humans with diets that nourish and satiate. Appetite 95, 500e519. Russelle, M.P., Entz, M.H., Franzluebbers, A.J., 2007. Reconsidering integrated crop-livestock systems in North America. Agronomy Journal 99, 325e334. Ryschawy, J., Choisis, N., Choisis, J.P., Gibon, A., 2013. Paths to last in mixed crop-livestock farming: lessons from an assessment of farm trajectories of change. Animal 7, 673e681. Ryschawy, J., Martin, G., Moraine, M., Duru, M., Therond, O., 2017. Designing crop-livestock integration at different levels: toward new agroecological models? Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems 108, 5e20. Schiere, J.B., Ibrahim, M.N.M., van Keulen, H., 2002. The role of livestock for sustainability in mixed farming: criteria and scenario studies under varying resource allocation. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 90, 139e153. Shepard, M., 2013. Restoration Agriculture. Acres U.S.A., Austin. Simons, L., 2015. Changing the Food Game: Market Transformation Strategies for Sustainable Agriculture. Greenleaf Publishing, Sheffield. Sossidou, E.N., Dal Bosco, A., Elson, H.A., Fontes, C.M.G.A., 2011. Pasture-based systems for poultry production: implications and perspectives. World’s Poultry Science Association 67, 47e58.
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Soussana, J.-F., Lemaire, G., 2014. Coupling carbon and nitrogen cycles for environmentally sustainable intensification of grasslands and crop-livestock systems. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 190, 9e17. Steinfeld, H., Wassenaar, T., 2007. The role of livestock production in carbon and nitrogen cycles. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 32, 271e294. Stukenholtz, P.D., Koenig, R.T., Hole, D.J., Miller, B.E., 2002. Partitioning the nutrient and nonnutrient contributions of compost to dryland-organic wheat. Compost Science and Utilization 10, 238e243. Sulc, R.M., Franzluebbers, A.J., 2014. Exploring integrated crop-livestock systems in different ecoregions of the United States. European Journal of Agronomy 57, 21e30. Sulc, R.M., Tracy, B.F., 2007. Integrated crop-livestock systems in the U.S. corn belt. Agronomy Journal 99, 335e345. Teillard, F., Jiguet, F., Tichit, M., 2015. The response of farmland bird communities to agricultural intensity as influenced by its spatial aggregation. PLoS One. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0119674. Udawatta, R.P., Jose, S., 2012. Agroforestry strategies to sequester carbon in temperate North America. Agroforestry Systems 86, 225e242. Veysset, P., Bebin, D., Lherm, M., 2005. Adaptation to Agenda 2000 (CAP reform) and optimisation of the
farming system of French suckler cattle farms in the Charolais area: a model-based study. Agricultural Systems 83, 179e202. Wilkins, R.J., 2008. Eco-efficient approaches to land management: a case for increased integration of crop and animal production systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363, 517e525.
Further Reading Jones, D.L., Cross, P., Withers, P.J.A., DeLuca, T.H., Robinson, D.A., Quilliam, R.S., Harris, I.M., Chadwick, D.R., Edward-Jones, G., 2013. Nutrient stripping: the global disparity between food security and soil nutrient stocks. Journal of Applied Ecology 50, 851e862. Knez, M., Graham, R.D., 2013. The impact of micronutrient deficiencies in agricultural soils and crops on the nutritional health of humans. In: Selinus, O., Alloway, B., Centeno, J.A., Finkelman, R.B., Fuge, R., Lindh, U., Smedley, P. (Eds.), Essentials of Medical Geology, Revised Edition. Springer ScienceþBusiness Media, Dordrecht, pp. 517e533. National Research Council, 2010. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
IV. DIVERSIFIED AGROECOSYSTEMS AT FARM LEVELS FOR MORE SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE PRODUCTION?