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Second FAO Electronic Conference on Tropical Feeds
Livestock Feed Resources within Integrated Farming Systems
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Abstract of the thirty second paper, from F.A. Neckles.

Questions that might stimulate discussion on this topic
include:

1. What has been the impact of "modernisation" on feeding
systems in your country?

2. What are the opportunities of promoting more sustainable
feeding systems in your country in the near future?

3. What are the means to overcome the constraints that oppose
the establishment of sustainable feeding systems?

4. Are activities such as tourism, industrial development,
etc., interfering with the development of livestock-based
agriculture in your area?

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CONSTRAINTS TO THE PROMOTION OF INTEGRATED FARMING SYSTEMS IN
SMALL ISLAND STATES

F. A. Neckles

Sugarcane Feeds Centre, Trinidad, West Indies
E-mail: FANEC@eclacps.undp.org

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ABSTRACT

Over the last 50 years when agricultural modernisation was
attempted, farmers were encouraged to forsake mixed farming
for monoculture systems aimed at achieving high technical
efficiency and with the expectation of increased income. In
the highly "monetised" though small economies of the islands,
this was taken as being a valid approach for agricultural
development. Integrated farming, the traditional agriculture
of both larger and smaller farmers, was not encouraged.

The new systems resulted in increased production and improved
quality of product. Being based on imported feed, the
devaluations which occurred in the value of local currencies,
with consequent increase in prices of imported inputs, have
resulted in higher costs to the producer and ultimately higher
prices to the consumer. The options seemingly available have
been to seek high technical efficiency of production, seek
alternative feed inputs from local sources, or to get out of
production.

Some smaller farmers are increasingly dependent on production
methods based on a mixture of new and traditional practices.
These include utilising local natural feeds, recycling waste,
integrating their livestock with cropping activities, limited
aquaculture production, etc. The technical parameters are not
as high, but the economic returns are satisfactory and the
systems are apparently more sustainable. The more
"commercial", medium-sized farmers are attempting to purchase
only essential inputs, while growing and utilising what they
can create or obtain as feed from their holdings.

The climate is such that some islands experience relatively
low rainfall, 1,100 mm in Antigua and Barbuda with drier
year-round conditions, while some at the other extreme have
levels as high as three times this. This influences the
growth, availability and quality of the forages, products and
by-products useful for feeding. But these are problems that
could be solved technically.

The limit of land availability dictates that integrated,
intensive methods of production with recycling of effluent to
soils, most of which have been heavily exploited, eroded and
denuded from centuries of commercial export agriculture, must
be preferred. Systems will have to be based on the economic
and social environment in which agriculture operates. This
presentation hopefully raises some of the issues beyond those
that are only technical.

KEY WORDS: Integrated Farming System, island, Caribbean,
modernisation, extension, imported feed, local feed, feeding
system, sustainability

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FAO ELECTRONIC CONFERENCE:
LIVESTOCK FEED RESOURCES WITHIN INTEGRATED FARMING SYSTEMS
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