Innovate and intensify to adapt and grow

Innovating in the integral improvement of the systems, through sustainable intensification, will allow to increase the adaptive capacity and resilience against climate change to the extensive family livestock production systems of Argentina and Peru.

Context of the story

By 2050, the agricultural sector faces the challenge of increasing production by more than 60% to feed the world. The arid and semi-arid areas of Argentina and Peru, where family farmers rely on extensive livestock farming, have high susceptibility to climate change, environmental fragility and high levels of rural poverty. In these regions, research and innovation are challenged to increase production and efficiency, considering environmental changes. Given this scenario, Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (ISA) is presented as the most rational alternative, to increase the efficiency and resilience of production systems.

Adapting extensive family farming systems to climate change to improve livelihoods

The implemented initiative

Through FONTAGRO financing and own resources, INTA and La Molina Agrarian University promote innovations in establishments of 100 demonstrator producers in 4 regions of Argentina and Perú. The objective is to adapt their systems to climate change and link their production to short marketing circuits, in order to improve their livelihoods.

Innovations in 100 demonstrative farms in Argentina and Peru

The technological solution

Around 100 family livestock farmers in Argentina and Peru implement technological innovations in their farms such as: forage evaluation and adjustment of carring capacity, strategic supplementation and sanitary plan, generate management infrastructure such as paddocks and sheds, capture, store and transport water for family and animal use, improve their irrigation systems, cultivate forage species as a protein and / or energy bank and are linked to local markets through fairs and / or associative sales.

Because with the Project we were able to build the shed, now we can save the goats that do not freeze to death when they are born, protect them from predators. We protect mother goats and feed under the shed

Doña Blanca Olave, from the Tierras Blancas site, in the North of Neuquén is a goat producer

Participating countries

Type of project

Results

We work with 120 family farms, 100 of them are demonstrators and 20 are surveyed as a control group. At the end of the first year we obtained a baseline of animal and forage production from the demonstrator and control participating producers in each region and country. At the end of the project we hope to have increased meat, wool and milk production by 25% and by 30% the sale of their products to local markets in the demonstration fields compared to the control group. More than 500 neighboring are are trained in management practices for adaptation to climate change based on the demonstrator fields. Through the dissemination we are reaching more than 10,000 family producers in the 4 project regions, who will be able to benefit from this knowledge generated in the region. More than 250,000 consumers will benefit from healthy and safe products from family farming in local markets.