Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forestry Systems
Synergy in the property
Integrated crop-livestock-forestry (ICLF) is a sustainable production strategy that integrates farming, cattle, and forestry activities in common areas, by intercropping, succession, or rotation. It seeks to intensify and share the benefits generated by the synergy of the integration from the different activities combined in four production system modalities: integrated crop-livestock (ICL), or agropastoral; integrated livestock-forestry (ILF) or silviagriculture; integrated crop-forestry (ICF), or silvopastoral; and integrated crop-livestock-forestry (ICLF), or agrosilvopastoral systems.
The ICLF's adoption in Brazil is estimated at 17 million hectares in the 2020/2021 crop. The expansion's potential can reach 48 million hectares, especially with the incorporation of unproductive areas, as the degraded pastures. The ICLF's portfolio acts on the problems and opportunities related to the ICLF's Brazil system's improvement and expansion, having the production sector as the main plaintiff.
The portfolio includes, also, the adoption of the ICLF strategy for the recuperation and incorporation in degraded areas, demanding the enhancement and the development of strategies in terms of compositions and arrangements of systems to meet the specificities of each biome. Finally, the work requires the generation of technical indices that inform the ecosystem services measurement of ICLF's systems, supporting the assessment of the environmental impacts and the economic repercussion of its adoption on the pricing of these services.
Aligned with its 2020-2030 Master Plan and with the Sustainable Development Goals established at the UN 2030 Agenda, Embrapa defined a strategy for organizing its research, development, and innovation projects in purpose to attend to the priority challenges related to:
- Adding value to the ICLF's systems by measuring and recognizing the ecosystem services offered.
- Enlarging the arboreal and forage species options validated in the Caatinga, Cerrado, Mata Atlântica, Pantanal and Amazônia biomes for the use in integrated crop-livestock-forestry systems.
- Establishing the management specificity of each Brazilian biome regarding the forage and arboreal component in ICLF systems, associated with animal thermal comfort and carbon sequestration
- Recovering and incorporating degraded pasture areas in the Cerrado, Mata Atlântica, Pampa, Caatinga and Amazônia biomes (in order of priority) by adopting regionally typified ICLF systems
- Feasibility of the simultaneous sowing of agricultural crops and pastures in integrated crop-livestock-forestry systems.
- Typifying ICLF's systems according to the specificities of Brazilian biomes and regional production profile
The Portfolio Management Committee works to define innovation challenges and oversee the portfolio of projects.
Chairperson:
Embrapa's Innovation Model focuses on open innovation, which relies on partnerships since the beginning of each project for the sake of the market insertion of new assets. Find out how to jointly invent with Embrapa technological solutions that add value to business and enable innovation in the agricultural production sector.
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