New infographic illustrates reintegration of livestock and crops

The latest news from the Grassland 2.0 team on grassland-based agriculture and sustainable agriculture.

Tag: livestock

New infographic illustrates reintegration of livestock and crops

Match Made in Heaven’s new infographic explaining how integrating crops and livestock can work and why a farmer might want to consider it.

Back in the day, diversified farms were the norm—every farm had a mix of livestock, annual crops, and perennial pastures. Though viewed by some as impractical and inefficient in today’s era of specialization, there are sound scientific and economic reasons to pursue diversified farming systems for today’s agriculture. There’s a growing movement of farmers who are reintegrating livestock and crops to recapture some of the economic and environmental benefits they provide. In the Upper Midwest the Match Made in Heaven project is teaming up with innovative crop and livestock farmers to modernize and scale up diversified systems for today’s agriculture.

Grassland 2.0 and partners receives grant to understand opportunities and barriers related to integrating livestock and crop production

Diversified crop and livestock systems offer some of the best options for getting more continuous living cover on the landscape. Incorporation of forage crops and well-managed pasture into crop rotations is key to achieving the economic and environmental outcomes. In recent decades, specialization has been a dominant trend in the upper Midwest. Now that is changing, and there is increasing interest in re-integrating livestock into annual cropping systems.