Nutrient cycling in integrated plant-animal systems: implications for animal management strategies in smallholder farming systems

摘要

Poverty and food insecurity characterize most of the agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This necessitates effective management of the natural resources on which African agriculture depends. The soil is a major resource base in this system and its interaction with plants and animals constitutes a potential entry point for the adoption of sustainable management strategies that contribute to the overall portfolio of adoption of natural resource management strategies. In most of SSA, the greatestopportunity for sustainable agriculture exists through close integration of plants and animals with each other and with the soil, each providing an input into the productivity of the other and making use of some output from the other system. The integrated agricultural systems could be animal-range, animalcrop or animal-range-crop. The interactions between plants, animals and soil that we emphasize in this chapter involve nutrient transfers.