Sustainable pastures

The issue of sustainability is being applied with greater clarity in the present times, when countless mistakes have been made in the management of grassland ecosystems, for example, the cutting and burning of large areas of land leaving without tree and shrub cover the ecosystems destined to livestock management and establishing monocultures of forage species which causes, among many other things, the loss of biodiversity.

A pasture is considered sustainable when, in the long term, the conditions of the ecosystem are improved without negatively interfering with the environment using endogenous resources that strengthen the economic and social component. In that sense, the ecological productions of the pastures play a very important role, since there are alternatives that help with the contribution of nitrogen through the biological fixation contribution of organic matter among other essential contributions to the agroecosystem.

In this sense, Shakoor (2008), mentioned that the sustainability of agro-ecosystems refers to the ability of the system to maintain its productivity by decreasing economic and natural disturbances, external or internal, satisfying present needs without harming future generations. Sustainability is based on the interrelation of the natural characteristics of the system and the pressures and interventions it suffers, as well as those social, economic and technical interventions that are made to counteract negative pressures, highlighting the resilience of the system.

In this sense, a sustainable agroecosystem is one that has the following attributes: productivity, stability, reliability, resilience, adaptability, equity and self-sufficiency, although there are broad and clear concepts about the sustainability of production systems, the definition of sustainable pasture is based on the capacity of said ecosystem to supply livestock products in high volumes and stable over time, that they are at the same time economically profitable and that they do not produce negative effects on the environment, but that resources are conserved or improved.

Among the principles of sustainable foraging are the recycling of nutrients and organic matter, plant and animal diversification, at the level of species or genetics in time and space, optimization of nutrient and water flow, provision of optimal soil conditions for crop growth, through the management of organic matter and the stimulation of soil biology.

There are adequate pasture management to achieve sustainability, rational grazing voisin is the most efficient livestock production system based on grass, this efficiency is achieved through the use of all existing knowledge, tools, theories and laws on forage production and animal production, without leaving any component out. A rational use is made of the resources we have to produce. It was André Marcel Voisin who created the Four Universal Laws of Rational Grazing, these four laws are called universal, because they can be applied anywhere in the world, in any climate, where there is pasture growth, no matter how minimal it may be.

Dear readers, sustainability is a current concept with an extensive development of frameworks, indicators and metrics to measure both the stability and the social, economic and ecological harmony of agroecosystems, being possible the measurement of the sustainability of livestock agroecosystems of the tropics with a focus on pastures. Sustainable foraging is a set of systems focused on livestock production, based on good practices to improve productivity, without affecting ecosystems, taking care of the raw materials and natural resources used in production.

Likewise, it should be understood that a sustainable pasture in the tropics must meet these conditions, such as providing benefits to the soil and plants, welfare to animals and providing both profitability and livelihoods to the producing family, through appropriate management practices that allow the supply of stable products over time, the resilience of the pasture system and that conserve or improve natural resources, as well as plant biodiversity for present and future generations.