Judson Ferreira Valentim, Julie Ryschawy, Júlio César dos Reis, Anna Victoria N. Garik, Caitlin A. Peterson, Joice Ferreira, Lindsay W. Bell, Rachael D. Garrett, Marc Moraine, Juliana Gil, O. Cortner, Laurens Klerkx, Swiss Federal Insitute of Aquatic Science and Technology [Dübendorf] (EAWAG), AGroécologie, Innovations, teRritoires (AGIR), Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), CSIRO Agriculture Flagship, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation [Canberra] (CSIRO), Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), Boston University [Boston] (BU), Wageningen University and Research [Wageningen] (WUR), Knowledge, Technology and Innovation group, Innovation et Développement dans l'Agriculture et l'Alimentation (UMR Innovation), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro), Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), University of California [Davis] (UC Davis), University of California, Embrapa Agrossilvipastoril, Embrapa Acre, National Science Foundation (NSF) 1415352, Thomas Jefferson Fund Make the Planet Great Again program, Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University, Italian Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea, Global Development Policy Center at Boston University, Rachael D. Garrett, ETH Zürich / Boston University, Julie Ryschawy, Université de Toulouse, Lindsay W. Bell, CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Owen Cortner, ETH Zürich / Boston University, JOICE NUNES FERREIRA, CPATU, Anna Victoria N. Garik, Boston University, Juliana D. B. Gil, Wageningen University, Laurens Klerkx, Wageningen University, Marc Moraine, CIRAD, Caitlin A. Peterson, University of California, JULIO CESAR DOS REIS, CPAMT, and JUDSON FERREIRA VALENTIM, CPAF-AC.
Crop and livestock production have become spatially decoupled in existing commercial agricultural regimes throughout the world. These segregated high input production systems contribute to some of the world's most pressing sustainability challenges, including climate change, nutrient imbalances, water pollution, biodiversity decline, and increasingly precarious rural livelihoods. There is substantial evidence that by closing the loop in nutrient and energy cycles, recoupling crop and livestock systems at farm and territorial scales can help reduce the environmental externalities associated with conventional commercial farming without declines in profitability or yields. Yet such 'integrated' crop and livestock systems remain rare as a proportion of global agricultural area. Based on an interdisciplinary workshop and additional literature review, we provide a comprehensive historical and international perspective on why integrated crop and livestock systems have declined in most regions and what conditions have fostered their persistence and reemergence in others. We also identify levers for encouraging the reemergence of integrated crop and livestock systems worldwide. We conclude that a major disruption of the current regime would be needed to foster crop-livestock reintegration, including a redesign of research programs, credit systems, payments for ecosystem services, insurance programs, and food safety regulations to focus on whole farm outcomes and the creation of a circular economy. An expansion of the number of integrated crop and livestock systems field trials and demonstrations and efforts to brand integrated crop and livestock systems as a form of sustainable agriculture through the development of eco-labels could also improve adoption, but would likely be unsuccessful at encouraging wide-scale change without a more radical transformation of the research and policy landscape. Made available in DSpace on 2020-03-18T14:43:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Drivers-of-decoupling.pdf: 1071766 bytes, checksum: 042134bf5cdd1952a07781e992a5a3d8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2020