WARC taps into local knowledge to study integrated livestock AMY HUTTON WARC Livestock Research and Local Food Coordinator
Expanding crop production enterprises by incorporating livestock is a tried and true method for diversifying farm income and conserving resources. In the Bitterroot, livestock have been integrated into crop production systems for most of our agriculture history, contributing soil fertility, residue breakdown, and essential weed control to our farm systems. However, integrated systems like these come with unique risks and burdens including crop damage, pathogen exposure, high labor demands, and usually some unexpected chaos!
I experienced a bit too much of that chaos myself when I started dreaming up a new research project three seasons ago. After incorporating my own sheep, poultry, and hogs into various fruit and vegetable production systems over the years, I had a taste of the complexities at play and the questions needing answers. I wanted to imitate the efficiency of a healthy ecosystem on my farm: plant waste feeding animals, animal waste feeding plants, and livestock doing the work of weeding and fertilizing instead of me. But far too often the worst weeds were left untouched, while hogs uprooted the tree guards or the goats clamored over them, and that one hen always found her way out of the fallow plot and into the just-seeded one. Just how
