A new kind of sustainable intensified agriculture based on CA is emerging and new production systems often also include trees grown as hedge rows to control grazing and provide habitats and fuel, or include such as at the community or trees as strip crops with annual crops rotated in adjacent strips. Trees in crop-livestock systems often add significant synergistic values. Innovations that can strengthen the multi-dimensional role of integrated crop-livestock-trees systems and their resilience are taking place and there is a need to share this knowledge more efficiently and to build jointly owned research and development programmes to achieve critical mass of expertise and financial resources focused on helping farmers in major agro-ecologies.

The Agriculture and Consumer Protection Department of FAO (AG), consisting of four technical divisions, is fully aware of the innovations emerging in Brazil and in the Consultative Group of International Agriculture Research System, and elsewhere, and of the need to take stock on what is new and to determine how best the Department and its partners (internationally) can contribute to enabling better global agriculture and especially to assist smallholder producers to harness the benefits of “new forms” of integrated crop-livestock production systems.

This proceeding of the electronic and face-to-face Consultation held early in 2010 is just a first step. AG is committed to facilitate effective development, focused on sustainable production intensification of crops and of livestock and their integrated systems – at the farm level and also area-wide integration -- such as at the community or watershed levels. We look to Embrapa, IFAD, World Bank, IICA, the CGIAR and many others to join with FAO to help set up a facility and shared program ofwork to move a better agriculture forward and to do so quickly; as every day is a hungry day for over a billion people.