INEMAD - Reconnecting Livestock and Crop Production

摘要

European agriculture is becoming more and more specialised. Farm specialisation however co-evolves with an increasing reliance on external inputs and increasing environmental damage. Indeed, at this moment we experience a paradoxical situation where crop production has a need for fertiliser while livestock has an excess of nutrients. Recycling energy and materials through re-connecting crop and livestock production becomes indispensable for attaining agricultural sustainability. INEMAD will address the question of which new methods and how new arrangements should be developed to restore the recycling within the specialisation context. To realize these ambitions, the leading principle of INEMAD is a triangular enlargement (see figure) of the traditional farming systems with a "processing" system. Processing is proposed as a third system, to be linked with crop and the livestock production, in order to increase agricultural productivity while reducing external energy input and closing nutrient cycles.