Economic Effectiveness of the Crop-Livestock Interactions in Function of Organic Production

Abstract

The recent research has provided insight into the item whether livestock must be included in the crop farm in order to attain the economic benefits of crop-livestock interactions, particularly those related to soil fertility management. Crop-livestock operations are well suited to the adoption of many alternative practices. Crop rotations using cover crops, such as leguminous hays, are readily suited to livestock operations. These rotations reduce fertilizer and pesticide needs and provide a valuable feed source. Many legumes are quality hay crops. In croplivestock operations, hay crops with a market value ordinarily lower than cash grains have economic value as a portion of farm land in a cover crop. They may provide additional erosion control benefits and allow the planting of feed grains on more suitable land. Manure also becomes a valuable source of soil organic matter, nitrogen and other nutrients such as potassium and phosphorus. Diversified crop-livestock operations also have greater protection against input (feed) and output (animal products) price fluctuations. By different methods of calculations in this paper economic benefits in the interaction of cropping and livestock as well as the effects of the crop rotations on the farm will be analyzed.