Adaptive Grazing of Native Grasslands Provides Ecosystem Services and Reduces Economic Instability for Livestock Systems in the Flooding Pampa, Argentina

Elizabeth J. Jacobo (), Ulises J. Martínez Ortiz, Santiago M. Cotroneo and Adriana M. Rodríguez
Additional contact information
Elizabeth J. Jacobo: Área de Agroecología, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Av. San Martín 4453, Buenos Aires C1417DSE, Argentina
Ulises J. Martínez Ortiz: Departamento de Economía, Desarrollo y Planeamiento Agrícola, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Av. San Martín 4453, Buenos Aires C1417DSE, Argentina
Santiago M. Cotroneo: Área de Agroecología, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Av. San Martín 4453, Buenos Aires C1417DSE, Argentina
Adriana M. Rodríguez: Departamento de Producción Animal, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Av. San Martín 4453, Buenos Aires C1417DSE, Argentina

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: There is a widespread concern about the negative impact of intensive livestock farming on climate change and biodiversity loss. We analyzed the trade-off between meat production and environmental variables related to global warming—energy consumption, use efficiency of energy, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, carbon footprint, and GHG balance—of two alternative intensification strategies of livestock farming in the Flooding Pampa: conventional intensification (CI) based on external inputs, and ecological intensification (EI) based on maintaining native grassland in good condition through adaptive multi-paddock grazing (AMPG). We also explored the relationship between meat production and the economic variables gross margin and its year-to-year variation. Energy consumption was positively correlated with meat production (ρ = 0.95, p = 0.0117), and EI farms consumed less fuel energy and showed higher energy use efficiency than CI farms (294 ± 152 vs. 2740 ± 442 MJ ha −1 y −1 , 38.4 ± 28.8 vs. 1.23 ± 0.13 MJ kg LW −1 y −1 , p < 0.05, respectively). GHG emissions and carbon footprint did not show significant differences between EI and CI strategies. As soil carbon sequestration was significantly higher in EI farms than in CI farms (1676 ± 304 vs. −433 ± 343 kg CO 2eq ha −1 y −1 , p < 0.05), GHG balance resulted almost neutral and higher under the EI strategy (−693 ± 732 vs. −3520 ± 774 kg CO 2eq ha −1 y −1 , p < 0.05). CI strategy obtained higher meat production but a similar gross margin to the EI strategy and a more unstable economic return, as the coefficient of variation in the gross margin doubled that of the EI strategy (84 + 13.3 vs. 43 + 2.6, respectively, p < 0.05). Ecological intensification of cattle production in the Flooding Pampa demonstrates the potential for a positive relationship between individual cattle farmers’ profits and overall societal benefits, as reflected in improved environmental performance.

Keywords: Salado Basin; rangelands; external inputs; gross margin variability; sustainability; stability; agroecology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/10/4229/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/10/4229/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:10:p:4229-:d:1396809

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().