Agribusiness: Agroecological tropical farming systems through crop–livestock integration.

Agribusiness: Agroecological tropical farming systems through crop–livestock integration. An analysis of the operations and performance of 17 farms in three different tropical zones (Guadeloupe, Brazil, Cuba) demonstrates that systems are more agroecological, efficient and resilient when a diverse range of activities are practiced and nutrient cycles are closed with higher-intensity crop–livestock integration flows. Today’s agriculture must respond to increasingly complex demands. It must meet the ever-growing demand for food, while using fewer inputs, as natural resources become more scarce, while also adapting to the challenges brought on by the massive changes affecting socio-ecosystems. Agroecology offers a conceptual framework for developing farming systems that are productive, self-sufficient, efficient and resilient to better meet these challenges. Agribusiness: Agroecological tropical farming systems through crop–livestock integration. Crop–livestock integration (CLI) incorporates a number of agroecological principles (Dumont et al., 2013), such as closed cycles and using diversity to improve resilience. Researchers looked at how farms with more integrated mixed crop–livestock systems (with diverse and complex nutrient flow networks) were more productive, efficient, self-sufficient and resilient (Bonaudo et al. 2014). Their study focused on two areas.