Integrated System Approach (crops, livestock, and perennials) for Improving Soil Health and Food Provision.

The focus on production, within many current agricultural systems, has resulted in the daily kilocalories available person^-1 , on a global basis, increasing from approximately 2200 in 1961 to almost 3000 in 2011. However, this focus on productivity has reduced soil health and ecosystem regulatory services like pollination. Agricultural systems that integrate crops and livestock and utilize perennials can help to address these issues. USDA-ARS research in Mandan, ND indicated soil quality on an integrated crop-livestock system was similar to a grazed perennial pasture and that this system could reduce wintering costs for cow-calf producers. Including perennials into annual crop rotations as part of an integrated system can provide livestock forage, reduce input costs and provide pollinator habitat. A survey of apiaries in North Dakota found that 80% were located in or adjacent to hayland, pastureland or rangeland. However, despite the many benefits, there are limitations to integrated agricultural systems. Integrated systems are complex and require greater management input. Often management input is substituted for applied inputs. As an example, if the integrated system includes cover crops, management decisions need to be made regarding length of cover crop growing season, frequency of cover crops within the rotation and how the cover crop will be utilized. Making these management decisions requires understanding the tradeoffs between enterprises. For example, current research at Mandan has indicated that cover crops can be successfully interseeded into the spring wheat phase of a 3-year crop rotation but this practice decreased spring wheat grain yields by approximately 471 kg ha^-1. However, the same cover crops provided up to 254 grazing days ha^-1 the following year. These trade-offs indicate the need to develop better methods for determining total productivity in systems that utilize both crops and livestock. Producers will need easy-to-use decision tools to manage the system complexity.