Does crop-livestock integration improve energy-use efficiency, recycling and self-sufficiency of smallholder farming systems in Burkina Faso?

Abstract

Faced with the major challenge of global population growth, the agricultural sector must reconcile an increase in food production with a decrease in its environmental impact. Crop-livestock integration (CLI) by mixed family farms with low-level inputs may be one way of doing this. One of CLI main principles is to use the resources produced by the various activity units on the farm to manage other units. CLI is built around three major practices: animal draft, forage storage, and organic manure production. The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of these practices on the autonomy, recycling and energy efficiency of mixed family farms. To do this, the gross energy flows of eight mixed family farms in the cotton-growing area of Western Burkina Faso, monitored over a twenty months’ period, were analyzed with the ecological network analysis (ENA) method. The results showed that fodder storage and organic manure production enabled farms to increase recycling and autonomy, and to acquire better energy efficiency. The ENA method highlights the characteristics and performance of farms of different types (crops, crop-livestock, and livestock). It also assesses the contribution of CLI practices to this performance. However, there remains leeway on the level of implementation of CLI practices to improve energy recycling on mixed family farms in the cotton-growing area of Western Burkina Faso.