Evaluation of Sustainability of Smallholder Dairy Production Systems in the Highlands of Mexico During the Rainy Season

A sustainability evaluation was undertaken with 22 smallholder dairy farms in the highlands of Mexico; following the IDEA method in the agroecological, socioterritorial, and economic scales (all scales are out of 100). Sustainability was highest for the agroecological scale (59/100), intermediate fo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Agroecology and sustainable food systems 2013-09, Vol.37 (8), p.882-901
Main Authors: Fadul-Pacheco, Liliana, Wattiaux, Michel A, Espinoza-Ortega, Angélica, Sánchez-Vera, Ernesto, Arriaga-Jordán, Carlos M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cluster analysis
cows
dairy farming
Dairy farms
economic sustainability
farm sustainability
farms
highlands
highlands of Mexico
IDEA method
Identification
production technology
Rainy season
Seasons
small size farms
Sustainability
Sustainable development
wet season
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Summary:A sustainability evaluation was undertaken with 22 smallholder dairy farms in the highlands of Mexico; following the IDEA method in the agroecological, socioterritorial, and economic scales (all scales are out of 100). Sustainability was highest for the agroecological scale (59/100), intermediate for the socioterritorial scale (53/100), and lowest on the economic scale (43/100). The sustainability of a farm is the lowest score of the three scales. In most farms, the lowest was the economic scale. A cluster analysis led to the identification of five distinct groups: Cluster 1 defined two farms not related to others, cluster 2 farms (4) were those with high agroecological scores, cluster 3 farms (8) were most representative of the area, cluster 4 included two farms with low socioterritorial and economic sustainability scores, and cluster 5 was made up of the remaining six farms with the highest economic sustainability score, but limited by the agroecological and socioterritorial scales. In all farms, there is a high reliance on bought-in inputs. Therefore, given the limited resources of these systems, the better option is to limit the number of cows to those that can be fed mostly with the production of the farm, which increases the economic sustainability. The IDEA method is a useful tool for sustainability assessment of small-scale dairy systems.
ISSN:2168-3573
2168-3565
2168-3573
DOI:10.1080/21683565.2013.775990