Nutrient flows in small-scale farm production systems from Northeastern Brazil

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis research focused on identifying strategies to enable phosphorus and potassium recycling in agricultural systems at Northeastern Brazil. Thirty-three local farms were selected to the study, where each farm was taken as a single system and the areas used for crop and livestock production (e.g., cashew field, corn field, beans field, cattle pasture, pigpen, etc.) made up the subsystems within each system. Considering diversity as the number of subsystems within a farm and interaction as exchange of materials between internal subsystems, the higher the diversity and interactions, the more efficient nutrient cycling was. This higher efficiency arises from using the nutrient in more than one subsystem, before being exported from the system. Overall, just a few farmers have used strategies to enable the return of nutrients to its original area. The interaction among the subsystems was restricted to flows deriving from plant to household and livestock production.