Adaptive Grazing of Native Grasslands Provides Ecosystem Services and Reduces Economic Instability for Livestock Systems in the Flooding Pampa, Argentina

Abstract

There is a widespread concern about the negative impact of intensive livestock farming on climate change and biodiversity loss. We analyzed the trade-off between meat production and environmental variables related to global warming—energy consumption, use efficiency of energy, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, carbon footprint, and GHG balance—of two alternative intensification strategies of livestock farming in the Flooding Pampa: conventional intensification (CI) based on external inputs, and ecological intensification (EI) based on maintaining native grassland in good condition through adaptive multi-paddock grazing (AMPG). We also explored the relationship between meat production and the economic variables gross margin and its year-to-year variation. Energy consumption was positively correlated with meat production (ρ = 0.95, p = 0.0117), and EI farms consumed less fuel energy and showed higher energy use efficiency than CI farms (294 ± 152 vs. 2740 ± 442 MJ ha−1 y−1, 38.4 ± 28.8 vs. 1.23 ± 0.13 MJ kg LW−1 y−1, p < 0.05, respectively). GHG emissions and carbon footprint did not show significant differences between EI and CI strategies. As soil carbon sequestration was significantly higher in EI farms than in CI farms (1676 ± 304 vs. −433 ± 343 kg CO2eq ha−1 y−1, p < 0.05), GHG balance resulted almost neutral and higher under the EI strategy (−693 ± 732 vs. −3520 ± 774 kg CO2eq ha−1 y−1, p < 0.05). CI strategy obtained higher meat production but a similar gross margin to the EI strategy and a more unstable economic return, as the coefficient of variation in the gross margin doubled that of the EI strategy (84 + 13.3 vs. 43 + 2.6, respectively, p < 0.05). Ecological intensification of cattle production in the Flooding Pampa demonstrates the potential for a positive relationship between individual cattle farmers’ profits and overall societal benefits, as reflected in improved environmental performance.