Integrated crop-livestock systems in Australian agriculture: Trends, drivers and implications

Australia has a long history of mixed farming. This paper examines the integration of Australian cropping and livestock production from three perspectives: as a factor in land use change, a consequence of individual management practices and a means of meeting farmers' multiple objectives. Since about 1995, the proportion of cropped land has increased on Australian cropping farms while livestock numbers have decreased. Land use in the north-eastern, central and south-western regions of the cropping zone have diverged. Despite these changes, mixed farms still dominate Australia's broadacre farming regions. Previous accounts of the dimensions in which farming enterprises are integrated can be simplified for Australian broadacre agriculture. For most purposes it is sufficient to consider a nested set of four integration options: "specialization" (not integrated organizationally), "separation" (integrated organizationally only), "rotation" (integrated organizationally and spatially, but not temporally) and "synchronization" (integrated in all three dimensions). We illustrate these integration options with a short survey of agronomic practices that affect crop-livestock integration. We review the farmer objectives that enterprise integration can meet and the constraints that limit it, seeking to balance social, economic and agronomic factors. We use a dynamic simulation model to make a first quantification of the economic risk reduction provided by enterprise diversification. Constraints imposed by limited labour, capital, and management attention cannot be overlooked; this is especially relevant in Australia where labour is increasingly in short supply. We characterize our surveyed set of agronomic practices with respect to the farmer objectives they affect. We find that farmers generally have the option of meeting a particular objective through different practices that affect different dimensions of integration. Practices that result in closer integration in time and space generally require greater management attention; practices that do not integrate in space typically require an increase in external inputs. History suggests that current commodity price ratios may be sufficient to slow or reverse the overall land use trend away from livestock production. In the longer term, forecast increases in worldwide demand for meat, energy costs and soil resource constraints will all encourage Australian cropping farmers to maintain mixed systems; however reduced availability of labour relative to capital will push land use toward specialized systems. Valuing the benefits and costs associated with differing degrees of enterprise integration is a major research challenge that will require insightful application of both biophysical and economic models. Crown Copyright (c) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.