Livestock Production and Climate Change:

towards sustainable production

with smaller environmental footprint:

Paulo César de Faccio Carvalho

The PISA System in Brazil

PISA Public-private initiative

led by the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture

“A sustainable intensification production

model oriented to increase food production at

farm and landscape levels based on

sustainability pillars”

GOOD FARMING PRACTICES

PI

SA

Production

Integrated

Systems

Agriculture✓one shaping principle:the interdependence between healthy diets and the social and environmental sustainability of the food system

Nutrition Livestock Production

Farmers apply voluntarily

Universities are responsible for proposed technologies

management interventions implemented

3 yearsproject

Local RAS(local empowerment)

Donors

Private consultants (extension services)

~1050 small stakeholders

~30 municipalities

small dairy farmers

14 lactating cows

~150 litres total daily milk production

Challenges: dependence on external inputs,

low income, labour intensive, environmental

footprint, ageing farmer population, industry

demands for scale.

Southern Brazil

Crop succession planning

Sound grazing management Soil health

Targeted interventions/technologies

Diminished costs

Enhanced quality of life

No till Reduced labour

Strategy: use locally available

resources

Holistic approach

Farm finance management

Resource use efficiency

The social impact on those communities is simply huge!

*end of 1st year

Milk yield per cow incresases by 30%

Reduces feeding by 20%*

Amount of milk produced per unit feeding concentrate

increases from 1.9 to 4.2 kg

Number of lactating cows increases from ~14 to 19*

Annual milk yield increases from 4,800 to 11,250 kg.ha-1

IMPACT

MORE

Before PISA After PISA Range

Somatic cell counts - cfu/mL 250.000 20.000 - 88 %

Total bacteria counts - cfu/mL

650.000 200.000 - 70 %

Towards healthy diets…

Milk from grazing-based production systems has less saturated and more n-3 PUFA and CLAc9t11 which is beneficial for health. The occurrence of natural trans FA (t11) in milk predominates whereas intensive feeding practices enhance t10-FA, with possible negative health effects (Elgersma, A. 2015. Eur. J. Lip. Sci. Tech).

Each Us$ 1.00 invested on

PISA

Generates ~Us$ 6.00 in income

How much? Means ~Us$ 1,500 / smallholder / year(6 private meetings + 6 group meetings)

International reference for assessing trade-offs and synergies between all

dimensions of sustainability

494 farms already assessed

Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems (SAFA)

Improve sustainable livestock production for small farmers will increase their income as well as the nutritional quality of their (and

consumers) diets

Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems Research Group

Take-away message

~Ministério da

Agricultura, Pecuáriae Abastecimento