INTEGRATED CROP-LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS: LESSONS FROM NEW YORK, BRITISH COLUMBIA, AND THE SOUTH-EASTERN UNITED STATES

Highlights

• Livestock production in North America has moved to fewer farms with greater inventories

• Land application of livestock manures is a preferred nutrient recycling strategy

• Confined animal feeding operations have challenges to utilize livestock manure sustainably

• Integration of livestock and cropping systems is possible on a farm or among farms

• Nutrient balance is needed for environmental sustainability

Abstract

Livestock production in the United States (US) and Canada is diverse, but shows a common trend in most livestock sectors toward fewer farms producing the majority of animal products despite a large number of farms still small in production scale. The migration to larger and more concentrated animal feeding operations in beef finishing and poultry, swine, and dairy production allows processors to streamline supplies to meet market demand for abundant, low-cost livestock products, whether that be for packaged meat, dairy products, or eggs. With concentration of livestock operations comes the challenge of managing manures. When sufficient land is available and nutrients are needed, livestock manure is an excellent nutrient source and land application is the preferred method of recycling this resource. However, when livestock production is constrained in a geographical area and animal densities are high, manure may become an environmental liability with potentially greater risk for runoff and leaching of nutrients, emission of odors, ammonia, and greenhouse gases, and release to the environment of pathogens and chemicals of emerging concern. Addressing these challenges now and into the future requires learning from mistakes and adopting successful approaches. We describe different levels of integration between livestock and crop producers in New York, British Columbia, and the south-eastern US as learning opportunities to improve economic and environmental sustainability. Examples show that effective solutions should recognize (1) manure has value and is not just a cost, (2) farmers, farm advisors, extension educators, nutrient management planners, crop advisors, nutritionists, state agency personnel, regulators, and university researchers need to be active participants in development of solutions, and (3) change to a sustainable future requires a combination of government regulation and outcome-based incentives.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

cropland / dairy manure / nutrient cycling / pastureland / poultry manure / swine manure

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Supplementary materials

The online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2020365 contains supplementary materials (Tables S1–S4; Figs. S1–S5).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Alan Franzluebbers, Derek Hunt, Gary Telford, Shabtai Bittman, and Quirine Ketterings declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2020. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)