SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF EXTENSIVE CATTLE AND SHEEP PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN SOUTHERN CHILE

Abstract

The extensive livestock systems are decreased in the last decades but have important positive influences in the environment conservation, the maintenance of the rural poblation and the health of meat and milk consumers. Extensive livestock farming has low costs and not very high incomes, so the farm profit is rather low. The present study was carried out in 2017 with 29 livestock farmers in the cold steppe area, in the Comuna of Rio Ibáñez, Aysen, Chile. The aim of this work was to compare the characteristics of the farms with a previous study conducted in 2012, assess their sustainability in 2017 and propose some improvement possibilities. The variables studied were included in five attributes according to MESMIS methodology: Productivity, Stability, Adaptability, Equity and Self-management. There were few and circumstantial changes between 2012 and 2017. The global sustainability index was calculated (58%). The sustainability values of the five attributes were low to medium (54-64%). The presented actions for the enhacement of the sustainability are related to farm and farmer’s characteristics, including the asociationism and the off-farm activities. Concerning the commercialization, farmers must have greater participation in the different processes to obtain greater added value from sales of their produce. In order to carry out the proposed actions, it may be determinant the farmer's collaboration and the administrative organism support. It is also important to make consumers and Society at large aware of the importance of the mode of extensive production systems and the differentiated quality of their productions.