Using a view of livestock farms as social-ecological systems to study the local variety in their trajectories of change

In the Pyrenees National Park (France), as in other European mountain areas, the decline of agriculture and the reforestation of agricultural landscapes depress many assets of local importance for rural development. In comparison with other mountain areas, the relatively high capacity of Pyrenean family farms to survive is being increasingly challenged by growing uncertainties in the local and global social-economic environment. Rural development stakeholders thus place increasing value on the maintenance of livestock farms and on their multifunctional role in landscape management. In this paper we present the results of a tentative analysis to improve assessment of variety in the longterm patterns of change in individual family farms of the current farm population by means of a case study. We combined a conceptual model of a family farms as a social-ecological system and multivariate analysis to build a typology of the histories of 24 family farms in the study area, and to explain their individual development paths since 1950. Our approach allowed us to distinguish four groups of farm trajectories. These are compared with the different types of temporal patterns of change in the family farms in our sample. Our results confirm the importance of considering family dynamics to explain farm trajectories

Transmissions de l’exploitation en moyenne montagne pyrénéenne : ruptures et continuités

Que transmet-on quand on transmet une exploitation agricole aujourd’hui? La pérennité des exploitations et la transmission intergénérationnelle sont au centre des enjeux du développement durable, en agriculture notamment (Landais, 1999

Chapter New Opportunities in Metabolomics and Biochemical Phenotyping for Plant Systems Biology

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Understanding how farmers last over the long term: a typology of trajectories of change in farming systems. A French case-study

In the current context of market fluctuation on agricultural products prices, European agriculture is endangered. In hilly areas, the orientation of CAP policy promoting specialization added to an always increasing lack of work forces challenges the future of farms. Nevertheless, farmers found how to adapt to local context to last on the long term. In this study, we try to assess the diversity of the adaptative strategies developed by farmers to last in analyzing their trajectories of change. Our study aims to understand the variety in trajectories of farms from 1950 up to now. We applied an integrated approach to the farm population of a case-study site, in the Coteaux de Gascogne. In this hilly region of south-western France, agriculture maintained with a limited specialization of production. We made a survey of the history of every farms working land in an area of about 4000 ha. We used a two steps-analysis including : (i) a manual assessment of the trajectory of each farm and (ii) a typology of farm trajectories build on a combination of multivariate analysis on a set of data composed by 20 variables for 50 farms on 10-year steps. The interpretation of the types was based on the results of the manual assessment. The resulting 6 types of trajectories reflect different objectives and strategies. Farmers found different “paths to last” in a same local context (environmental, political and economic). In two types of trajectories, farmers became specialized, in the other ones, farmers maintained more traditional systems, based on a crop-livestock association. This typology was validated by local farmers. Our results stress out the importance to understand the systemic functioning of farms to study local change in agricultural systems. In a next step of our study these results will be used in a participatory future process with local stakeholders, through co-constructed prospective scenarios

New Opportunities in Metabolomics and Biochemical Phenotyping for Plant Systems Biology

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Quelles stratégies pour un maintien de la polyculture-élevage ? Une étude des trajectoires passées d’exploitations dans les coteaux de Gascogne

La polyculture-élevage est de plus en plus reconnue au plan international comme un moyen de limiter les problèmes environnementaux tout en permettant une agriculture productive et économiquement viabl