Innovation Platform for Sustainability of Family Livestock Systems in Uruguay and Argentina

Family livestock systems based on meat production in natural pastures constitute the majority of cattle farmers and rural populations of Uruguay and Entre Ríos (Argentina). The high levels of stocking rate and/or the absence of spatial-temporal management cause overgrazing and poor spatial distribution, which, in combination with climatic variation, contribute to low levels of consumption, energy balance and percentage and weight at calf weaning. These production models with limited animal production and few contributions to ecosystem services are highly vulnerable to climatic and economic changes, which limits the economic result, positive interactions of producers with the commercial sector and the entire meat chain, and conditions the sustainability of family farming.

This project proposed to develop a support system for decisions on grazing management that allows coupling economy and environment at farm and landscape scale. The main hypothesis proposes that it is possible to improve the management of the pasture stocking rate in order to couple the increase of the physical-economic income and environmental performance. This will contribute to solving the problems of grazing distribution and environmental performance, improve economic income and reduce the vulnerability of family livestock producers in the study region.