Crop-livestock integrated systems for more sustainable agricultural production: A review

Authors: Hendrickson, John

Submitted to: CABI(Council of Applied Biology International, Oxford, United Kingdom
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/2/2020
Publication Date: 4/7/2020
Citation: Hendrickson, J.R. 2020. Crop-livestock integrated systems for more sustainable agricultural production: A review. CABI (Council of Applied Biology International), Oxford, United Kingdom. 15:1-11. https://doi.org/10.1079/PAVSNNR202015012.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1079/PAVSNNR202015012

Interpretive Summary: Integrating crops and livestock may be a way to improve agricultural sustainability. I reviewed 116 articles and considered whether they addressed social, environmental or economic aspects of sustainability. Most of the 116 articles focused on environmental (77 articles) or economic aspects (72 articles) while only 32 focused on social aspects. Only nine articles included all three aspects of sustainability. The review showed several areas where more research on integrated crop-livestock systems is needed. These included effects on the social fabric of communities, and the potential for system performance to be impacted by selecting the location of agricultural system components (i.e. grasslands, croplands) and by including multiple types of livestock.

Technical Abstract: Integrated crop-livestock systems have been proposed as a method to sustainably intensify agricultural systems. However, it is important to understand what is known about these systems and where potential gaps are in our current knowledge. I reviewed over 116 different research and review articles focused on integrated crop-livestock systems and based on their focus, divided them into one of the three different aspects of sustainability: environmental, economic, or social. Most of the 116 articles focused on environmental (77) or economic (72) aspects of integrated crop-livestock systems, with 42 articles having both environmental and economic aspects. Of the 32 articles focused on social issues, there were 17 articles that included both environmental and social aspects, and 13 articles that evaluated both economic and social aspects of integrated crop-livestock systems. Only nine articles evaluated all three aspects of sustainability in crop-livestock systems. Most social articles focused on potential adoption strategies but there was little information about the impact that integrated crop-livestock systems have on the social fabric of communities. Other areas of limited research included how the spatial arrangement of different components of integrated crop-livestock systems may affect system synergies and the inclusion of multiple livestock species, including monogastrics, into these systems.