KING, J. M.

RISCHKOWSKY, B.

SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE, M.

VEIGA, J. B. da

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Deutscher Tropentag 2004International Research on Food Security, NaturalResource Management and Rural DevelopmentRural Poverty Reduction throughResearch for Developmentand TransformationBook of AbstractsEditors:K. J. Peters, D. Kirschke, W. Manig, A. Bürkert,R. Schultze-Kraft, L. Bharati, C. Bonte-Friedheim,A. Deininger, N. Bhandari, H. WeitkampHumboldt-Universität zu BerlinOctober 5-7, 2004Subsession 3c: Technologies for Livestock Production — Oral PresentationsKeeping Cattle in the Brazilian Eastern Amazon — Constraintson Improving Smallholder ManagementMARIANNA SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE1,2 , BARBARA RISCHKOWSKY2 , JONASBASTOS DA VEIGA3, JOHN M. KING21University of Hohenheim, Institute of Animal Production in the Tropics and Subtropics,Germany2Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Animal Husbandry and Breeding in the Tropicsand Subtropics, Germany3Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), BrazilExotic large ruminants have been kept on flood plains and riversides of the Brazilian rain forestsince the 17th century. Their incursion onto the non-flooded areas is recent. New settlers tothe Amazon region were encouraged with financial incentives, particularly during the 1970s,for politico-strategic reasons. Initially, large ranchers were the main beneficiaries of officialsettlement programmes. Then the droughts in the Northeast and land shortages in the Southtriggered the migration of poorer people who became smallholders in the North. The new envi-ronment was very different from the places they had left. Some of these small farmers startedto adopt the cattle keeping activities of the large-scale neighbours. Credit lines were launchedsupporting the purchase of cattle and the building of fences. In the development agenda, nodifferentiation was made between smallholders and ranchers. The non-flooded areas were cov-ered by rainforest, which had to be slashed before any cultivation of pastures could start. There-growth of the secondary vegetation competed with the introduced pasture plants for spaceand scarce soil nutrients. This paper examines the specific limitations for improvement of cattleproduction imposed by the smallholders’ overall farming system. For 15 months thirty-sevensmallholdings with cattle were visited monthly in order to draw a realistic picture of the wholefarm system. Smallholders in the Bragantina study region kept an average of 14 head mostly forbeef production, but their main enterprise was cropping: two competing land uses within onesystem. Whereas ranchers had at their disposal surplus funds to modify the environment, small-holder pastures were established with family labour in competition with economically moreimportant cropping activities. Problems of adequate pasture establishment and maintenancewere aggravated by the smallholders’ lack of capital and specialised knowledge. Furthermore,their cattle served mainly as a means of financing, rather than production. Consequently, hus-bandry was hardly ever being based on long-term planning or on continuous keeping. Sales andpurchases of complete herds were observed in a quarter of the farms studied. Therefore, farmadvisers need to consider the low-input character of cattle keeping and focus on the preventionof ecological degradation of pasture.Keywords: Brazilian Amazon, cattle, production conditions, smallholder, systems approachContact Address: Marianna Siegmund-Schultze, University of Hohenheim, Institute of Animal Pro-duction in the Tropics and Subtropics, Garbenstraße 17, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany, e-mail: mssch@uni-hohenheim.de239

Keeping cattle in the Brazilian Eastern Amazon - Constraints on improving smallholder management.

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Keeping cattle in the Brazilian Eastern Amazon - Constraints on improving smallholder management.

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