Crop tree-livestock integration in Conservation Agriculture Systems

Realizing sustainable agricultural mechanisation
African Conservation Tillage Network
By: Peter Kuria
1 December 2017
Crop-tree-livestock
integration in CA systems

Contents
1.Objectives and outputs
2.Crop-livestock integration
o Dairy Goats
o Small livestock
3.Agroforestry
o Evergreen Agriculture
o FMNR
4.Conclusion

1.Historical perspectives
2.What is Conservation Agriculture (CA)?
3.Terminologies related to CA
4.Application of the CA principles
5.Opportunities for CA systems
6.World adoption trends of CA
7.CA for challenging situations
8.Overall challenges
Contents

Objective and outputs
1. To equip the extension personnel with knowledge on integrated and
diversified crops and livestock farming systems in CA
2. By end of the lesson, participants will be able to:
3. Explain the rationale for promoting integrated crops and livestock
management in CA systems;
4. Describe integrated crop and livestock farming in CA systems;
5. Imparting knowledge and skills on integrated crops and livestock
farming in CA

Essential and complimentary CA enhancers …
which are however not CA!
• Good agronomic practices
o Timely planting; Proper plant spacing
o Effective weed control (with and without herbicides)
• Use of improved external inputs
o Improved seeds
o Judicious use of fertilisers and pesticides
• Crop – livestock integration
• Agro-forestry – fertiliser trees, fodder, fruit, live fences, wind
breakers, [Faidherbia Albida; Baobab; Grevillea; Shrubs (e.g. Piliostigma reticulatum); ]
• Mechanization
CAUTION:
Farmers should be empowered to differentiate the contributions of CA and improved
inputs

Climate change strikes at the core of FOOD SECURITY
Climate change
=
Less food
Less water for
food & livestock
production
Land degradation
Higher
Disease and
Pest
Outbreaks
Less livestock fodder
and yield

Other opportunities ….
• Diversification to livestock and other income generating activities
• Agroforestry / Homestead fruit production/ small-scale
plantations
 increased household income
 alternative food supply
 fuel wood and construction material supply
 increased soil fertility
01/12/2017

CONFLICT AREAS
• Failure to consider livestock as part of the CA
system creates an immediate conflict
• Excessive residue consumption by livestock kept
by farmers.
• Excessive residue consumption by livestock
owned by pastoralists
• Other uses of the crop residues
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE TO MITIGATE THESE CONFLICTS?

Is this the best feed for the livestock?

Synergies in integration of crop and
livestock enterprises
• enterprise diversification. More profits
from diversification enterprises (piggery,
poultry, dairy, Multi Purpose Trees)
• recycling of nutrients,
• soil enhancing rotation crops,
• power and transportation, and
• biological "savings accounts'' for farmers.
• Fluctuations in meat and poultry market
prices are much smaller than grains

• Crop rotations can include targeted crops for fodder or oil seeds cake.
• Sunflower, Simsim or Canola for oil (nutritious food) and seed cake (livestock feed)
• Terracing and contour bunds help stabilise and increase crop production. The bonus
is also very beneficial.

Brachiaria undersown in maize
01/12/2017

Stabilized contour bunds.
1. Napier grass (fodder)
2. Fertilizer shrubs (Sesbania s, Calliandra ) for
fodder; fuel wood
3. Fruit trees -

Role of animals in the farm
• converters of primary agricultural products into value added products. Butter,
cheese, sausage, “Kentucky” fried chicken, specialised meat cuts
o resulting to higher benefits for the farmers and rural entrepreneurs
• more so in Africa where farms tend to be more specialised either for crops or for
livestock

Care of work animals
• Work animals (oxen, donkeys, horses, mules,
camels and water buffaloes) are highly valuable in
pulling farm implements.
• Pulling equipment is hard work. Animals need to
be strong and healthy.
• Process and reserve supplementary feeds and treat
them well to build up their strength.
• Prevent animals from eating crops and residues
when working by putting muzzles.

Positive effect of minimum tillage on
animal working conditions
• a reduced energetic requirement in about 80 percent compared to conventional
tillage
• seeding is the most power-consuming operation under Ca and it requires only 60%
of ploughing power

Some problems can arise when using animal traction
for no-tillage
• need to retrain the work animals
o CA equipment uses a long yoke: some 60 cm plus twice the width of
the distance between the planting rows.
o Both animals and operators need to get used to the new equipment
(subsoilers, rippers, planters, sprayers and knife rollers).
• impeded direct seeding- due to too much or unmanaged
soil cover
• difficulties to conduct the animals against the erect plants
• difficulty for the animal and the operator to see the
furrows opened by the seeder or overlapping borders
when spraying

Crops and livestock compete for the
same resources
• CA requires a critical level of crop residues and cover crops to maintain or
enhance soil chemical, physical and biological properties
• The same residues are used to feed livestock
• The removal of crop residues for or by livestock, either through grazing or cut
and carry, is a common practice
• Residue removal by animals is usually excessive, leaving insufficient
vegetation for soil conservation purposes.

DAIRY GOATS
• How minimum tillage/soil movement?
o Controlled grazing to reduce compaction
o Supplementary cut and carry
• How permanent soil cover
o Controlled grazing, purposeful fodder shrub production

Dairy goats cont … What feeds?
• Planted grasses: Elephant grass, Brachiaria, Setaria, Rhodes
grass, Paspulum, etc.
• Forage legumes: Lablab, green leaf desmodium, Vicia
vilosa (vetch),
• Crop residues: sweet potato vines, maize stover, cassava
peels and leaves, banana leaves and peels,
• Agro-industrial by-products: seed cakes of cotton,
sunflower, canola; cereal milling by-products, molasses,
• Conserved forages: hay, silage, leaf meal,
• Exotic fodder trees: Calliandra, Leucaena, Gliricidia
sepium, Sesbania sesban,
01/12/2017

Dairy goats cont …
• Which crop rotations/associations?
o Maize/Desmodium/Napier  Cassava/Dolichos lablab
or Desmodium  Maize/Pigeon peas/pumpkins 
o Wheat  Potatoes  Vetch/Black oat  Oil seeds
(Canola!!)  Wheat
• Opportunities with CA links?
o Cover crops provide excellent fodder
o Multi purpose trees on wind-breaks and contour bunds
provide fodder, fuel, soil nutrients
o Processed oil seeds generate cake for concentrates
blending
01/12/2017

Realizing sustainable agricultural mechanisation01/12/2017
OTHER OPPORTUNITIES = SMALL
LIVESTOCK
ARE THESE OPPORTUNITIES TO TAKE
• Bee Keeping
• Rabbit Keeping
• Poultry rearing
• Fish Farming

Consider Agroforestry
• Fertiliser trees
(Faidherbia albida, )
• Multi-purpose trees for
fruits, fuel wood,
building materials
• Live fences
• Wind breakers

Integrating of AF and CA
Analysis of the farming system
o Identify entry points for AF
o Identify the appropriate species
o Integrating of AF and CA
o Training of farmers and extension –
knowledge intensive
01/12/2017

CA and AF - mimic the natural
ecosystems
Advantages
o systems more tolerant to climatic
fluctuations
o more and diverse products
o carbon sequestration
o nutrient cycling from deeper layers

CA and AF
01/12/2017
Soil fertility management – biomass
transfer, improved fallows, intercropping,
relay cropping
• Sesbania sesban,
• S. macrantha,
• Gliricidia sepium,
• Leucaena spp,
• Tephrosia spp,
• Tithonia diversifolia

CA and AF
Fodder production – legume shrubs,
intercropped with food and feed cereals
Some species:
• Acacia angustissima,
• Leucaena spp,
• Calliandra spp,
• Gliricidia sepium
Fuel – rotational woodlots, by-products
from soil fertility and fodder systems

Agroforestry – Start slowly
01/12/2017

01/12/2017
Fahiderbia albida and maize in sub-Saharan Africa

Faidherbia Fertilizer Trees at 100 trees per ha
01/12/2017

Conservation Agriculture with Trees in
Zambia
Maize yield -zero fertiliser
2008 2009 2010
----- Tons/ha -------
With Faidherbia 4.1 5.1 5.6
Without Faidherbia 1.3 2.6 2.6___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Number of trials 15 40 40

01/12/2017
CA and AF
Faidherbia albida is commonly found in cereal crop
systems in Ethiopia

01/12/2017
CA and AF
High-density Faidherbia millet systems in southern
Zinder, Niger, 2006.

Tobacco no-till – South Brazil (SC State)

Concluding remarks
If solutions depend on resources of which we do not have enough,
then they are not real solutions
1. Making agricultural inputs more accessible to smallholders may be a necessary – in
some cases – but not sufficient condition to close yield gaps;
2. Agricultural inputs do not work on degraded soils; soil rehabilitation is a
prerequisite for any form of agricultural intensification;
3. Replacing the natural vegetation of tropical landscapes with annual crops and
frequent tillage disrupts their basic ecological infrastructure and leads to
degradation and/or inefficient capture and use of energy, water and nutrients;
4. Smallholder farmers do not reason in terms of crops or cropping systems, they make
decisions that concern their whole livelihood system;

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Know how is still the most important limitation
to a greater adoption of CA

We have the opportunity to make a difference ….
…climate change adaptation/mitigation is not
something that can wait, it is not something
for somebody else …
www.act-africa.org
ACT IS FOR ALL OF US

OKUHEPA TJINENE
01/12/2017
Africa needs a uniquely African
green revolution (Kofi Annan)

Our Contacts
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING
Website: www.act-africa.org
Email: info@act-africa.org
Twitter: www.twitter.com/ACTillage

Crop tree-livestock integration in Conservation Agriculture Systems

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