**3. Integrated production system: symbiosis and synergy**

The holistic approach provides the rational for an integrated production system, where crop production, livestock production, and aquaculture-based production are all centered around and connected through the *bioenergy* that all three areas of production require as well as produce. This regenerative approach enables the creation of new biological capitals while breaking the cycle of poverty stemming from the scarcity that can lead to socioeconomic conflicts, through the effective recycling and management of bioenergy and biomass, now integrated into a virtuous cycle of biological capital regeneration.

This integrated production system is holistic, so that it also is embedded in the rural and peri-urban communities, linking primary production to marketing services, and the small and medium enterprises based in the community, all of which are connected through the centrality of innovative and sustainable technology contributing to all stakeholder's in the environment. Primary production includes crops, livestock, aquaculture-based fisheries, as well as specialty items that pertain to specific geographic locales and environments. Marketing and services include retail, restaurants, and food exports. Small and medium enterprises are focused on value-added processing, which could include food processing or materials processing for small-scale manufacture and construction.

At the Songhai Centers, this approach necessitated the redesign of production and development systems based on this new understanding of the integrated and interdependent nature of agriculture—engaging a broad and holistic appreciation of cyclic biomass and bioenergy flows with human ecosystems. The Center also focuses on increasing the entrepreneurial and production capacity of youth through functional training coupled with the appropriation and deployment of authentic and sustainable technologies. The Center assists youth in the incubation, seeding, and support of the development and launching of commercially viable enterprises. Across all this, the amelioration of environmental degradation and the preservation of environmental quality to ensure future generations inherit a healthier and less compromised environment than currently extant is the undergirding thematic [15, 16].
