Abstract
Extensive livestock production in southern South America occupies ~0.5 M km2in central-eastern Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil. These systems have been sustained for more than 300 years by year-long grazing of the highly biodiverse native Campos ecosystems that provides many valuable additional ecosystem services. However, their low productivity (~70 kg liveweight/ha per year), at least relative to values recorded in experiments and by best farmers, has been driving continued land use conversion towards agriculture and forestry. Therefore, there is a pressing need for usable, cost effective technological options based on scientific knowledge that increase profitability while supporting the conservation of native grasslands. In the early 2000s, existing knowledge was synthesized in a path of six sequential steps of increasing intensification. Even though higher productivity underlined that path, it was recognized that trade-offs would occur, with increases in productivity being concomitant to reductions in diversity, resilience to droughts, and a higher exposure to financial risks. Here, we put forward a proposal to shift the current paradigm away from a linear sequence and toward a flexible dashboard of intensification options to be implemented in defined modules within a farm whose aims are (i) to maintain native grasslands as the main feed source, and (ii) ameliorate its two major productive drawbacks: marked seasonality and relatively rapid loss of low nutritive value-hence the title “native grasslands at the core.” At its center, the proposal highlights a key role for optimal grazing management of native grasslands to increase productivity and resilience while maintaining low system wide costs and financial risk, but acknowledges that achieving the required spatio-temporal control of grazing intensity requires using (a portfolio of) complementary, synergistic intensification options. We sum up experimental evidence and case studies supporting the hypothesis that integrating intensification options increases both profitability and environmental sustainability of livestock production in Campos ecosystems.
Highlights
Global and Regional Context of Agricultural IntensificationIn the last 20 years, agricultural production has increased in most regions of the world through improving yields and through the expansion of the cultivated land area, typically at the expense of natural habitats (Burney et al, 2010)
The failure of the “New Zealand,” “Balcarce,” “PRONAP” and “PRONEP,” and “CONDEPE” plans in Campos ecosystem due to its lack of adaptation to the local extensive livestock systems is a clear evidence of this decoupling process
We consider that the use of sown pastures, stocking methods, fertilization, and feed supplementation in addition to other intensification technologies can be used strategically to aid and complement native grassland management in the Campos ecosystem but not as an ends in themselves
Summary
In the last 20 years, agricultural production has increased in most regions of the world through improving yields and through the expansion of the cultivated land area, typically at the expense of natural habitats (Burney et al, 2010). Trifolium sp., combined with P fertilization (Del Pino et al, 2016; Jaurena et al, 2016), or overseeding annual grasses, mainly Lolium multiflorum, combined with N fertilization (Ferreira et al, 2011a; Brambilla et al, 2012), or a mix of legumes and grasses and N and P fertilizers (Oliveira et al, 2015) These technologies are effective strategies to establish productive, high-quality C3 forage species into native grasslands that could be used to reduce seasonality and increase animal performance and stocking rates. This leads us to propose a new approach shifting from steady-state management tools to integrated strategies that may reduce system vulnerability while ensuring ecosystem service provision
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