111 Present address: 3 Associate Professor (jrmora@ut.edu.co), 2 Assistant Professor (vholguin@ut.edu.co), Livestock Production Department, Research Group Sistemas Agroforestales Pecuarios, Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia. In the Colombian Andean area, cattle production systems have been associated with high environmental impact on strategic ecosystems, like tropical forest, e.g., deforestation on the Andean hills of Colombia to establish pastures as the source of cattle food or to establish coffee plantations (Etter and Wyngaarden 2000). The natural regeneration processes of forest were observed specially, where the coffee growing areas were abandoned (Rodriguez 2011). Rationally managed livestock systems could play a positive role in rural livelihoods as they constitute a source of protein food with reduced costs, nutrient recycling, increased savings, availability of draught force, and a diversified source of commercial products (Mora and Holguin 2011). Studies in the Colombian Andean area generally focused on quantitative aspects of production systems. Our concerns were to know in depth the interactions between livestock and crops, in the small farm frame, hence, a qualitative approach was the best way (Denzin and Lincoln 1994). Patton (2002) defined qualitative research as attempting to understand the unique interactions in a particular situations. In short, the aim of qualitative research is to truthfully present findings to others who are interested in what you are doing (Learning Domain 2013). In qualitative research, the sample is small and not chosen randomly. Rather, the choice of a sample is purposeful (Patton 1996). It is because, in a qualitative approach the researcher is not as concerned about generalization of findings. On the contrary, qualitative research is willing to trade-of generalization of findings (which is an important aims of quantitative research) in order to understand and interpret what was going on (Patton 1996). The objective of this study was to understand the role of small scale livestock production systems as a source of additional income in rural farmers. The research included the identification and partial characterization of the small scale livestock production systems belonging to the coffee growers in the Andean area of Colombia, South America. A sample of 49 farmers was selected. We uses a theoretical sampling, it is a central part of the grounded theorizing (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Thus, theoretical sampling is tied to the purpose of generating and developing theoretical ideas, rather than being aimed either at producing findings that are representative of a population or at testing hypotheses (Hammersley 2006).The study was carried out in households of coffee growing areas from Icononzo, Villarica, Fresno and Líbano, located in the Andean area of Tolima (Colombia). The main economic activity of this area is growing coffee, however, the livestock activities are gradually finding place in the household’s activities portfolio. It is a tropical rainy forest area. Cluster analysis was used as a tool for classifying agents into various types (Hansen and Jaumard 1997). In this article, we used multivariate statistical analysis based on a dissimilarities matrix (such as in numerical values) among the observations. Steps in our analysis were: surveys and interviews were done to identify and analyze the socioeconomic characteristics of families and develop a database. The variables used to create the dissimilarity matrix in the cluster, were of agro-ecological and socioeconomic factors and the production behaviours of the farm households: family composition, farm area, coffee area, banana area, pasture area, homegarden area, total amount coffee bushes, grain coffee production, cattle, pigs, hens and chicken. A clustering of farms was performed using the technique of cluster analysis (CA) by the Ward method. This procedure allows a typology according to their similar characteristics to the variables analyzed. Ward’s method forms groups where variability within groups is high and is the highest among groups. To further establish the differences between groups of farms were performed Canonical discriminant analysis. Finally, we analyzes the role of domestic animals within the context of livelihoods of rural families distributed in a typology of three cluster defined by multivariate analysis. Clustering using cluster analysis of multivariate statistics, showed 3 groups or types of farms i.e., small, medium and large farms (Fig. 1). In addition, we distinguished 3 types of farms based on the estimated area. Land use in the farming systems: A farming system is defined as a population of individual farm systems that have Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 84 (8): 919–922, August 2014/Short communication Importance of livestock in small-scale farming systems of rural coffee areas in Colombia J MORA-DELGADO 1 and V A HOLGUÍN 2 Universidad del Tolima, Ibagué, Colombia Received: 5 October 2013; Accepted: 30 May 2014 Key words: Livelihoods, Qualitative approach, Peasant, Small livestock