Animal Integration & Feeding Strategies for the Tropical Smallholder Farm

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Spiral bound, 97 pages.
by Keith O. Mikkelson

I first visited the Mikkelson's Aloha House Orphanage and Sustainable Farm in Puerto Princesa, Philippines, back in 2013, when ECHO Asia was co-hosting a Sustainable Agriculture Workshop and also conducting research on the continued effectiveness of the Small Farm Resource Center.

While at their site, I was stuck by the intentionality and efficacy of site planning, organic best practices, nutrient cycling, water recovery, and creative solar energy usage. I was also struck by the integration of animals for various functions and saw them as beneficial integral components in their system and not simply as protein storehouses like modern industrialized agriculture tends to view animals. It was quite the inspiration to see the Aloha House property and how it produces an impressive amount of food in a small area, with very few off-farm inputs.

This booklet was borne out of a need to help smallholder farmers re-integrate animals into their systems and use nutrients and energy wisely in order to reduce external inputs, increasing sustainability and profitability. This booklet is based on five of Keith's prior articles that were written for ECHO Asia Notes, which include AN #20 Fish Feed, AN #25 Hog Feed, AN #28 Poultry Feed, AN #31 Ruminant Feeds, and AN #35 Animal Integration.

It is our hope that this work will inspire and guide how the integration of animals and on-farm products for animal feed creation can reduce dependency on external (often costly) inputs for the farm, increasing sustainability and profitable for farmers.