An Assessment of Sustainability of Dual-Purpose, Dairy and Beef Cattle Production Systems in the Cundinamarca Department (Colombia) Using the MESMIS Framework

The Cundinamarca Department is located in the Colombian Andean region, and features a variety of bovine production systems dedicated to milk, beef or dual-purpose production in cold, warm and temperate climate areas, respectively. This paper analyses the sustainability of a sample of 35 farms (12 dual-purpose, 13 milk production and 10 beef production) located in some of its municipal areas using MESMIS methodology, which evaluated indicators related to social, environmental and economic factors of the systems during 1 year, grouping them by their productivity, adaptability, equity, self-management and resilience. For productivity, adaptability and equity, the dairy systems scored higher than dual-purpose and beef systems, whereas for the indicators of self-management, stability and resilience, the dairy systems scored lowest, while dual-purpose systems were the best. The indicators of economic sustainability increased in proportion to the intensification of the production system, availability of agricultural machinery and added value, resulting in the best scores being obtained by the dairy system and the worst by the beef system. For social sustainability indicators, the best score was obtained by dual-purpose systems, with dairy systems scoring the lowest, while dairy systems scored highest for environmental indicators. The results could be used to endorse public policies to promote the generation of sustainable agricultural systems.