Do integrated crop-livestock-forest systems have a place in New Zealand?

Integrated crop-livestock-forest systems are increasingly being promoted as more sustainable systems than monocultures. In this paper, the learnings from Brazilian research exploring partial to fully integrated crop-livestock-forest systems are used to model the changes in primary production, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) losses, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon budget, all using Overseer®, associated with a shift from beef production to more integrated crop-livestock-forestry systems, under New Zealand (NZ) conditions.

Four livestock-based systems were explored: rotational grazed with beef cattle; integrated croplivestock system, integrated livestock-forest system, and integrated crop-livestock-forest system. These systems were evaluated in five different locations with different soils and climate ,including, an Oxidic soil in Northland, Brown soils in Waikato and Canterbury, and Pallic soils in Manawatu and Otago. Primary production was higher under the North Island conditions for all scenarios. Integrated systems had lower beef production but also provided crop and timber production. Introducing annual cropping, while reducing GHG emissions, increased N losses. Systems with trees had lower GHG emissions and P and N losses and sequestered more carbon (C) than systems without trees. Enteric methane dominated (52%) GHG emissions across all systems and locations. Future studies should further investigate environmental performance and land suitability for different enterprises, synergies and trade-offs in integrated systems, and integration of different enterprises into an overall system, with the goal being to match enterprise to land type to maximise natural resource use efficiency and minimise environmental footprint.