Paper presented at the 52nd CFCS Annual Meeting, Guadeloupe, July 10-16, 2016
AGROECOLOGICAL PRACTICES AND ECOLOGICAL SERVICES IN THE FIELDS OF TROPICAL LIVESTOCK FARMING SYSTEM: A CARIBBEAN PERSPECTIVE G. Alexandre1, L. Rodriguez2, J. Arece3, J. Delgadillo4, G. Garcia5, K. Habermeier6, Andre M. Almeida7, A. Fanchone1, J.L. Gourdine1, M. Mahieu1 and H. Archimède1 1
INRA, UR143, Unité de Recherches Zootechniques, 97170 Petit-Bourg, Guadeloupe ; 2Finca TOSOLY, AP 23, Socorro, Colombia; 3Estación Experimental de Pastos y Forrajes ‘Indio Hatuey’, Universidad de Matanzas ‘Camilo Cienfuegos’, CP 44280, Matanzas, Cuba; 4 Centro de Investigacion en Reproduccion Caprina, Universidad Autonoma Agraria Antonio Narro, C.P. 27054, Torreón, Coahuila , Mexico; 5 Department of Food Production, Faculty of Science and Agriculture, University of the West Indies , St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago; 6Plateforme d’Agroécologie et de Développement Durable (PADED) PADED-Misereor 10, impasse Basilic, Delmas 65, Haiti; 7Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, PO box 334, Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis (West Indies) “The authors of this study acknowledge the support of the AgroEcoDiv project, which is co-funded by the European Union. Europe is moving in Region Guadeloupe with European Regional Development Fund” Keywords : agroecology, biodiversity, ecoservices, livestock system, Tropics Abstract With the crisis of global change, and particularly severe energy and food shortages throughout the tropical regions, agroecological (AE) systems are drawing renewed attention as an efficient alternative to modern intensive models of production. There is a pressing need to focus on the functions of animal and livestock farming systems (LFS), and characterize their potential contributions, whether positive or negative, to the sustainability of the system. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary to address such complex problems. The purpose of the work described here was to highlight solutions to minimize inputs while maximizing ecosystem services, by describing some success stories through diverse case studies of several systems in the Caribbean and Latin America. These were analyzed at different levels: animal/function, farm/family, and territory/society. We produced a set of rules that help to increase the efficiency of tropical systems: (i) choose the best-suited genotypes, while enhancing population biodiversity, (ii) match the farming system to the available resources, feed and by-products, (iii) steer the whole farming system through reproduction management with no hormonal treatment, while facilitating system reproducibility and increasing performances, (iv) control health constraints instead of nihiling risks, and implement an integrated management design to reduce chemical treatments or increase the use of nutriceuticals, and (v) mitigate climate constraints by using soft techniques. In the second part, the animal and LFS ecoservices are studied. The Tosoly farm of Columbia is conceived as a totally integrated crop-livestock system additionally allowing the production of energy at the farm level. Thus it epitomizes the positive impact that livestock can exert upon the environment. The case study of Haiti indicates how AE can help in designing a pro-poor sustainable system. It concerns an entire milk sector built all over the country on the basis of micro-units of milk production and processing. Finally, the socio-cultural functions of animals or systems in this region are described. Materials and methods The main objectives of the paper is to demonstrate that in the Caribbean region the concept of shifting paradigm - i.e. towards an AE transition- is not an empty word. On the contrary, many husbandry practices at the farm/territory levels or even so many studies at the animal/function levels have been addressing the AE transition objectives for more than 20 years in the Tropics (see reviews of [1], [9], [2] and [12]). Studies are disseminated all over the R&D teams working in the Caribbean region ([8], [3]). We gather some of our major issues and results owing to a multidisciplinary approach ([3]). This review paper is based upon the methodology of livestock farming system concept and systemic approach that we have already described ([2]). Main results Given that animal production results from complex and diverse biological processes it appears important to describe first the general on going framework (Figure 1). The different study cases are recombined owing to the systemic framework but can be unfold as followed. 1. A combined set of practices (Figure 1, Table 1) through a) matching resources and genotypes to the environment ([3] , [5], [19]; b) implementing a genetic policy according to the prevalent LFS of the region ([3], [19]); c) building feeding strategies ([16],[5]) through i) optimising all available biomasses even by ii) developping an efficient circular economy. 2. Addressing the environmental limits by soft and integrated practices (Figure 1, Table 1) by :a) setting up climate mitigation ([21] and [17]); b) piloting the system by means of reproduction management ([18] and [7] and c) implementing an integrated control of parasitism constraints ([17],[6] and [16])instead of nihiling the risks. The LFS are well-known to be multifunctional (see reviews of [2] and [19]). This is not only built upon the multiobjectives of the farmer but also on multi-physiological functions of the animals. The following chapters are built upon:
104