Author: Aaron K. Hoshide

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13:

This report compares the relative profitability and sustainability of Maine farms integrating crops and livestock with comparable non-integrated or conventional farms. Cooperating Maine farmers participating in the project "Re-Integrating Crop and Livestock Enterprises in Three Northern States" sponsored by the Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems (IFAFS) were surveyed. Cooperating farms were considering integration or were already integrated through either diversified on-farm integration or through more prevalent coupled interactions between specialized livestock and crop producers. Potato and dairy systems coupled for only two years (short term) had greater profitability compared to conventional systems. Profitability increased in the short term in two ways. First, potato farms grew more of their primary cash crop. Second, dairy farms expanded cow numbers, increasing profitability assuming increasing returns to scale. Coupled systems integrated for more than ten years (long term) had more favorable profitability and sustainability measures than short-term couplers since greater manure-nutrient credits were taken for potatoes and silage corn. The picture improved even more if potato yields increased in the long term, as suggested by long-term rotation plot studies in Maine. Even if coupling is more profitable than nonintegrated systems, it still requires farms to be in close proximity and for farmers to have adequate working relationships. Farmers may have to relocate in order to make coupling feasible. Future research will develop bio-economic models to simulate the longterm impacts of integrated and specialized production.