Crop-goat integration

Most Vietnamese farmers are smallholders, most usually with between 0.5 ha to 2 ha of land per household. A typical holding consists of a cropping area and a homestead, with the house, trees, vegetables and livestock. The main activity is growing food crops, and livestock production is usually a sideline. This article describes the development and impact of integrating goat production into existing farming systems in upland areas of South-eastern Vietnam. It shows the importance of integrating agricultural systems that build on the complementarities between the crop and animal systems. Such integration can lead to increased total productivity as well as increased ecological and economic sustainability. In this case, income of the farms increased very significantly with the proportion derived from livestock representing some 65 percent of the total income.