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In Europe, the specialisation of farms and regions and the disconnection of crop and livestock productions led to major environmental externalities (Lemaire et al., 2014) Still, high-input specialized farming systems are continuing to be developed. Bucking this trend, a few pioneering farmers have intentionally reintegrated (i.e. organized the return of) livestock into crop farms in several regions. While reintegrating livestock is often depicted as sustainable, research has rarely examined these systems.
We aimed to assess the practice changes related to livestock reintegration on crop farms and their agroenvironmental impacts.
Following innovation-tracking principles (Salembier et al., 2021), we identified 19 crop farmers having reintegrated livestock in two regions where crop farming predominates: the Toulouse Basin and the Parisian Basin. Farmers’ profiles varied in production mode, farm size, crop and livestock species produced, and in the type and duration of livestock reintegration. We conducted interviews to characterize the changes of practice following livestock reintegration and assess their impacts on direct and indirect energy consumption, net greenhouse gas emissions and nitrogen balance (Zahm et al., 2019). All agroenvironmental indicators were calculated at the farm level on a yearly basis, and assessed before and after livestock reintegration.
Data analysis is still in progress, but first results (9 out of 19 farms) show that on 4 farms having reintegrated meat sheep in outdoor systems, either by buying animals or through a partnership with a shepherd, farm nitrogen balance decreased (-0.5 ± 0.3 kgN/ha on average), mostly due to nitrogen exported via meat production and, in one case, to reduced use of nitrogen fertilizers allowed by the availability of sheep manure. Energy consumption also decreased (-92 ± 48 MJ/ha), as grazing helped terminating cover crops and reducing mowing in vineyards and orchard inter-rows. When related to the farm utilized agricultural area, net greenhouse gas emissions were almost not impacted (+ 0.02 ± 0.02 teq CO2/ha) by the return of livestock, as either few sheep were reintegrated, and/or they were present on the farm for a short period of the year. The slight increase was due to livestock-related emissions, which more than compensated the emissions saved by reducing mechanized operations. This was less true in cases of increased area of pasture or grass grown in orchard or vineyard. On the contrary, for the 5 cases of on-farm poultry reintegration, farm nitrogen balance, energy consumption and net greenhouse gas emissions increased (respectively + 3.5 ± 6.2 kgN/ha, + 20 230 ± 18 605 MJ/ha and + 0.13 ± 0.2 teq CO2/ha), mostly due to high levels of feed inputs (accounting for increases by 93 ± 3% and 81 ± 8% of energy consumption and net greenhouse gas emissions respectively). The fertilization strategy was rarely adjusted according to poultry manure produced on-farm, due to a lack of knowledge on its fertilizing effect. Carbon sequestration associated with converting a crop field into a grass field planted with hedgerows and trees for free-range poultry was more than outreached by indirect emissions from feed inputs.
This study is the first to assess the agroenvironmental impact of reintegrating livestock into specialised crop farms. According to the practice changes implemented, reintegrating livestock can help promote farm resilience by decreasing its reliance on non-renewable resources, through reduced energy consumption and on-farm production of organic fertilisers. This work contributes to produce knowledge on the agroenvironmental benefits of reintegrating livestock into crop farms, which are often advocated in research studies in analogy with integrated crop-livestock systems, but are rarely confronted to data collected on farms.
References
Lemaire, G., Franzluebbers, A., Carvalho, P.C. de F., Dedieu, B., 2014. Integrated crop-livestock systems: Strategies to achieve synergy between agricultural production and environmental quality. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 190, 4–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2013.08.009
Salembier, C., Segrestin, B., Weil, B., Jeuffroy, M., Cadoux, S., 2021. A theoretical framework for tracking farmers ’ innovations to support farming system design. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 41:61. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-021-00713-z
Zahm, F., Alonso Ugaglia, A., Barbier, J.M., Boureau, H., Del’Homme, B., Gafsi, M., Gasselin, P., Girard, S., Guichard, L., Loyce, C., Manneville, V., Menet, A., Redlingshöfer, B., 2019. Assessing the sustainability of farms. the IDEA v4 method, a conceptual framework based on the dimensions and properties of sustainability. Cah. Agric. 28. https://doi.org/10.1051/cagri/2019004
| Keywords | Sustainability; crop livestock integration; resilience; agroenvironmental evaluation; farming practices |
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