Is It Possible to Finance Livestock in a Sustainable Manner in Nicaragua’s Agricultural Frontier?

This Policy Brief analyzes the problem of extensive cattle-ranching and presents policy recommendations with an emphasis on the crucial role of research. It proposes a sustainable and inclusionary financing policy based on:

1. A redefinition of the target group, prioritizing small and medium farmers and showing greater receptiveness to their more intensive cattle ranching practices and the diversification of their farms. This redefinition is part of the adoption of a territorial approach that permits better knowledge of the families’ context, greater local embeddedness and a greater capacity to identify the power relations that generate exclusion;
2. A readjustment of the financing approach, geared to medium-and long-term investments for the development of small or medium-scale silvopastoral systems that combine social responsibility, an environmental focus and productive intensification with a better organization of family labor, the incorporation of infrastructure and technology and better market insertion;
3. The adoption of a research agenda as an instrument to support the fostering of sustainable cattle ranching, which implies that the micro-finance institutions (MFI)s contributing to this goal should invest in studies that seek to better understand the capitalization trajectories and livelihoods of small and medium producers who make use of productive intensification on their farms.