Abstract
Agricultural development in tropical wetland ecosystems faces constraints related to soil fertility, seasonal feed availability, and underutilized crop residues. Rice-cattle integration offers a solution by using rice straw as livestock feed and recycling cattle manure as organic fertilizer for paddy fields. This study aims to examine the concept, benefits, and development prospects of rice-cattle integration through a synthesis of national and international literature, complemented by empirical case evidence from Merauke Regency, South Papua, Indonesia. A narrative literature review approach was combined with a field case study. Results show that the integrated system produced an average rice yield of 2.6 t ha
-1
, compared with 2.0 t ha
-1
in the non-integrated system. Supplementation with fermented rice straw (2.7 kg dry matter head
-1
day
-1
) resulted in cattle weight gain of 0.43 ± 0.12 kg head
-1
day
-1
, higher than unfermented straw (0.36 ± 0.08 kg head
-1
day
-1
). Manure application at 2 t ha
-1
improved several soil chemical properties, although the response was not uniform across all parameters. Economically, the integrated system achieved an R/C ratio of 1.3 and an MBCR of 2.04, outperforming the non-integrated system (R/C 1.2). These findings confirm that rice-cattle integration is a context-specific resource-cycling strategy with demonstrated biological and economic potential, though its success depends on farmers’ capacity to process straw, manage manure, and receive adequate institutional and training support.