Better Crop-Livestock Integration for Enhanced Agricultural System Resilience and Food Security in the Changing Climate: Case Study from Low-Rainfall Areas of North Africa

Increasingly frequent droughts, declining soil fertility, and poor plantanimal-
atmosphere interactions are threatening the sustainability of integrated croplivestock
systems in the rainfed drylands of North Africa. Previous research from around the globe has verified that better integration of crop and livestock activities
within agricultural production systems is promising in boosting food productivity,
soil health, and overall farm profitability. This is especially relevant for rainfed
drylands, particularly in areas with lowrainfallwhere livestock production is predominant.
Although integrated crop-livestock farming already exists in these regions, the
decreasing integration between the two activities—induced by a variety of factors
during the previous three decades—resulted in perennial depletion of soil fertility
and an overall decrease of relative farm incomes. The North African region owes its
sustainable intensification benefits to numerous synergistic interactions.This chapter,
therefore, aims to highlight options for better integration of the crop-livestock system
into the region’s long-existing cereal-based livestock farming system, in order to
help boost food and nutrition security, farmers’ income and soil health. The chapter
looks at case studies from Algeria and Tunisia. In particular, it considers as the
key integrating factors for crop-livestock system: diversifying cereal monocropping
by introducing of food and forage legumes; integrating alternative grazing/feeding
systems; integrating tree-crops and livestock; adopting Conservation Agriculture
practices in order to effectively address the crop residue tradeoff between providing
feed for livestock and leaving residues as mulch; improving the management of
herd health and increasing the availability of scale-appropriate mechanization. A
combination of all is considered as the key integrating factor for the crop-livestock
system. The combination of all or a few of these components helps improve overall
farm incomes, crop productivity, and soil health, increases the efficiency of input
use, provide healthy protein for human’s diet and fodder for livestock, and also
has the potential as a sustainable intensification strategy. For the wider adoption of
these alternative options by smallholder farmers, it is important to consider different
approaches; for example, participatory evaluation, field visits, farmers field schools
and the use of information and communications technology, along with improving
farmers’ capacity to access and use these tools.