Colombia: Trees and Cows Offer Path to Recovery in Colombia

Jul 8, 2019 | World Bank
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The Mainstreaming Sustainable Cattle Ranching project, now in its tenth year, has helped 4,100 family farms in five distinct zones of Colombia adopt “silvopastoral” techniques that combine trees (silvo) with pasture, in a beneficial combination for farmers, their cows and the broader environment. Like shade-grown coffee, shade-grown cows are more productive and more sustainable than cows raised in open fields: the shade lowers the animals’ heat stress so they produce less methane, while the diversified vegetation improves their diet and productivity.