Crop Waste to Livestock Feed and Livestock Waste to Soil

Significant waste but edible biomass and fuel that can be utilized as raw materials are available locally. With internal efficiencies of recycling of nutrients in an integrated farming system and appropriate technologies, such waste can be optimized for the production of livestock feed and potting soil. These items are pivotal to the productivity and efficiency of sustainable farming. Once the initial set up cost can be laid out, the operation can be self-propelled to larger scales with economic benefits at the farm level as well as at the national level. There has been the argument that livestock feed requires large acreages under grain production which is not feasible in small economies of scale and in the context of small island developing states. The paradox is that there is high cost to produce waste which is not utilized and is a loss to the enterprise.

The Transitional Funnel Model of Farm Sustainability

Achieving sustainability in agriculture is a complex, dynamic, and ideal state that may never be fully achieved and a progressive process where the influential factors are also changing. In a dynamic environment there is a state of equilibrium reference point to which the sector can analyze its status in relation to that reference. A change in one variable among several will affect a change in the equilibrium status that is always in a state of constant change. An individual farm enterprise is, by far, less complex and dynamic than the agriculture sector and can be defined in more specific terms with achievable measures. However, it remains an ideal but not as elusive. This chapter shows how such an ideal diversified farm model from initial start up to mature sustainability may be represented with a theoretical model based on the actual practice of diversified-integrated farming.

General Introduction

There are myriad issues facing traditional farming in the Caribbean region. Despite various policy interventions and implementation of concepts over the past five decades for agricultural diversification in the region to increase local food production, the region is still grappling with finding an appropriate model to solve major issues. The issues are now exacerbated by the impacts of climate change, and major shifts in the approach to solving the issues have not yet proved fruitful. Against the setback of issues, controversies, and problems of farming in the Caribbean and the St. Kitts-Nevis example of a small island developing state (SID), the justification will be made for a diversified-integrated model that can account for the setbacks by optimizing farm and non-farm waste to build productivity, competitiveness, flexibility, and sustainability which are categorically the factors of successful farming.

Farm Enterprise Value Chain for Plum Tree Farms

Profitability of a farm enterprise is determined in large part by the value output that is derived per unit of input. Typically, there is significant loss to the enterprise when the farmer makes all the input from investment in equipment, materials, and labor but does not have control over the market value of what is produced and distribution. A significant percentage of profits from farm production lies in the hands of “middle-men” or “turn-hands” and retailers by basically cleaning, packaging, transporting, and displaying them – with time of the seller involved. Other more involved opportunities in the value chain are mainly agro-processing items that would otherwise be wasted, rendering, and specialty or other products that transition from the primary to secondary and tertiary economic sectors. This can occur within the farm from waste conversion to raw material for use on the farm, and also outside the farm and into the marketplace.

Directions for Future Research and Innovation and Conclusion

The agriculture sector appears to have more research than is actually utilized in a practical way. Most of the research and innovation fall in the domain of academia and consultancies and, by their very nature, do not address the main problem from the individual farm enterprise perspective. They tend to follow the sources of project funding channeled through agencies, departments, and ministries and, therefore, produced in favor of such organizations. The argument presented in this book for success in productivity and food security requires action research and innovation at the individual farm enterprise level. It is here proposed that action research is integral to innovation, and the major source of innovation ought to be around practical systems and activities on farms to make them successful. The theoretical transitional funnel model for farm sustainability offered in this book presents opportunities for testing, scaling-up, and replication of the diversified-integrated farm concept.

Diversified Integrated Farm Model

There is a worldwide issue in emerging economies with food security and increasing dependence on imported food from more developed countries. St. Kitts-Nevis and numerous Caribbean countries face similar circumstances. St. Kitts-Nevis is positioned to change this trend in its national economy and contribute to export with its Caribbean partners and perhaps further afield. Climate change, particularly pervasive drought conditions, present serious challenges but also opportunities to mitigate and adapt such adversities and accrue benefits to local farmers and related entrepreneurs if a model integrated farm is established with key contributing factors in its design such as productivity, flexibility, efficiency, and sustainability. An integrated farming system would compensate for low economies of scale in a value chain model, and linkages would sustain long-term stability and growth at the enterprise, sectoral, and inter-sectoral levels.

Concept and Metrics of Agricultural Diversification

This chapter presents some comparative analysis on agricultural diversification at the national and individual enterprise levels illustrating that although a country or region may have optimum diversification it may not translate into optimum diversification at the enterprise level to the disadvantage of farmers causing the national diversification to be unsustainable. This finding may strengthen the justification for an expanded model at the enterprise level to include integration of various aspects of production, such as crops, livestock, aquaculture, and soil and livestock feed production. The remaining chapters will identify and describe the various aspects and characteristics of the farm model from a practical perspective of an individual farm enterprise utilizing the model and demonstrating how to optimize farm waste to approach a zero waste scenario so that it can be instructive for various levels of uptake, including the individual farm enterprise level.