Crop and livestock integration

Crop and livestock integration – as a principle of agro-ecology – consists of a range of resource-saving practices that favors an efficient recycling of natural resources by creating a beneficial synergy between crop and livestock production, thus using the outputs of one system as inputs or resources for the other system.

This integration is based on four main pillars:

1. Feeds produced from crop production used in favor of animal production (forage crops, crop residues, fallow), etc.
2. Livestock as source of diverse food and nonfood products, such as milk, meat, honey, wool, leather and eggs, and sources of biogaz, fuel.
3. Transport and draught power in favor of crop production and other farming activities, such as tillage, irrigation, sowing, weeding, transport of harvest, etc.
4. Livestock as inputs for farming activities, such as manure, pasture management, and animal trampling enhancing soil structure by breaking up the hard soil crusts.

Added to the above four pillars are some economic flows: cash generated from crops providing incomes to buy animals, or cash from selling the animals allowing investment in crop production.