Alternative cropping and feeding options to enhance sustainability of mixed crop-livestock farms in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

We investigated alternative cropping and feeding options for large (>10 cows), medium (5–10 cows) and small (≤4 cows) mixed crop – livestock farm types, to enhance economic and environmental performance in Jhenaidha and Meherpur districts – locations with increasing dairy production – in south western Bangladesh. Following focus group discussions with farmers on constraints and opportunities, we collected baseline data from one representative farm from each farm size class per district (six in total) to parameterize the whole-farm model FarmDESIGN. The six modelled farms were subjected to Pareto-based multi-objective (differential evolution algorithm) optimization to generate alternative dairy farm and fodder configurations. The objectives were to maximize farm profit, soil organic matter balance, and feed self-reliance, in addition to minimizing feed costs and soil nitrogen losses as indicators of sustainability. The cropped areas of the six baseline farms ranged from 0.6 to 4.0 ha and milk production per cow was between 1,640 and 3,560 kg year⁻¹. Feed self-reliance was low (17%–57%) and soil N losses were high (74–342 kg ha⁻¹ year⁻¹). Subsequent trade-off analysis showed that increasing profit and soil organic matter balance was associated with higher risks of N losses. However, we found opportunities to improve economic and environmental performance simultaneously. Feed self-reliance could be increased by intensifying cropping and substituting fallow periods with appropriate fodder crops. For the farm type with the largest opportunity space and room to manoeuvre, we identified four strategies. Three strategies could be economically and environmentally benign, showing different opportunities for farm development with locally available resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Ruminant feed
• multi-objective pareto-based optimization
• farm bioeconomic model

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the NUFFIC fellowship program in the Netherlands, the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project (https://csisa.org/), funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Analysis and write-up work was also supported in part by the CGIAR Regional Integrated Initiative Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia, or TAFSSA (https://www.cgiar.org/initiative/20-transforming-agrifoodsystems-in-south-asia-tafssa/) and the Sustainable Intensification of Mixed Farming Systems (SIMFS) Initiative (https://www.cimmyt.org/projects/cgiar-initiative-sustainable-intensification-of-mixed-farming-systems-si-mfs/). The views of this manuscript do not necessarily reflect those of NUFFIC, USAID, BMGF, CGIAR, or the United States Government, and its contents shall not be used for advertising purposes. We deeply thank all the dairy producers and their families who participated in this research for their time. We also thank our Bangladeshi coordinator and research assistants for their commitment and diligent survey work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

For scientific purposes, data can be made available to individual scientists upon written request to the corresponding author.

Data protection and participation consent

All interviewees participating in this study were fully informed about the study purpose and were assured that their information would be treated anonymously. As a result, only persons giving explicit informed verbal consent were interviewed and at the end of the interview, the farmers consent signature was taken.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/27685241.2023.2290046

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Nuffic; United States Agency for International Development.