Toward Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems in West Africa

Abstract

Abstract Agriculture development in sub-Saharan Africa is characterized by two important tendencies: (1) a strong degradation of the natural forage resources exploited by pastoralism due to excess and uncontrolled stocking density linked to increasing demographic pressure and (2) development and intensification of arable cropping sectors within large irrigated perimeters based on mono-cropping systems directly linked with market pressure but leading to important negative impacts on environments. In between these two systems, there is space for development of more integrated crop-livestock systems based on a network of smallholder farms and susceptible to profit from synergies provided by diversification of production systems. The development of a local dairy production along the Senegal River, based on milk collection from a network of poor smallholder producers, is a relevant example of the accuracy of such a local integration across specialized sectors. The development of a pivotal forage resource based on alfalfa associated with arable cropping system should allow strong local synergies for (1) improving nutrition quality of local peoples by both nutritional complement production with leaf extracts and local dairy industry expansion and (2) improving agronomic and environmental performances of arable cropping systems. But beyond the technological, agronomic, and environmental benefits potentially provided by this integrated system, the socioeconomic conditions for its emergence and adoption have to be analyzed and promoted, which require further important studies.