Integrating extensive beef productions into the agro-food chain

Abstract

Agricultural outputs are immersed in a context of change characterized by an evolution from the quantity to the quality, in consonance with consumer's demand. Among the different productions, beef has been one of the more affected goods, due to the confluence of different factors, such as: the high international competition, the existing surpluses in the European Union, food crisis, as EEB, and more recently, those aspects related to animal welfare and the environment. Integrating quality beef into the food chain, and particularly, the one coming from extensive breeding systems, evidence different aspects insufficiently well-known, both, from the point of view of the production as from the demand. This article, try to identify such factors in order to get a better integration of this kind of productions into the food chain, by applying Delphi Methodology, in order to summarize and present the information given by different actors, as farmers, consumers, policy makers, administrative institutions…Results, evidence a high consensus about the need to keep on working in the differentiation of the product as well as to improve the information and promotion of this product, being production costs or even the price, not so decisive in this case.Quality beef, extensive production systems, Delphi analysis., Agricultural and Food Policy,