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Is farming enough in mountain areas? Farm diversification in the Pyrenees
Abstract
The continuity of farming in mountain areas in Europe is at severe risk and its future faces manifold uncertainties. Mountain farms are immersed in a long-term process of reorganization. Farm diversification plays a prominent role in this process of adjustment and reallocation. However, little work has been done explicitly on the role farm diversification plays in the current structural changes occurring. In order to fill this void, the nature of farm diversification has been examined in the Pyrenees, where four different typologies of farms have been identified: absence of diversification, agricultural diversification, farmland diversification and finally farm labour diversification. These typologies reflect a gradation along which the farm diversification practices are applied to more aspects of the farm household. Throughout this gradation farming is increasingly marginalised. Finally, it is argued that the endorsement of policy measures stimulating farm diversification in mountain regions should be cautiously considered, since there is high risk of encouraging further agricultural abandonment.
... Ces espaces sont confrontées à des contraintes environnementales qui limitent la productivité des prairies, de sorte que les systèmes pastoraux représentent la principale, et parfois la seule, option agricole. Ces zones « marginales » ont donc un rôle pionnier dans le développement des logiques de diversification (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). ...
... La transformation d'un système implique en général des changements dans les stratégies de commercialisation et l'organisation du travail . Une telle refonte du système peut même conduire à une diversification des activités agricoles audelà du rôle de production alimentaire de l'agriculture (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). Biggs et al. (2012) décrivent par une courbe en cloche la relation entre le niveau de diversité d'un système et la résilience des services écosystémiques qu'il fournit. ...
... La refonte des systèmes herbagers peut aussi se fonder sur une diversification des produits (Vagnoni & Franca, 2018), la transformation à la ferme et la vente directe afin de créer de la valeur sur l'exploitation. Il peut aussi s'agir de diversifier les activités agricoles au-delà de leur rôle dans la production alimentaire, par exemple en développant l'agritourisme (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). ...
La diversification des systèmes herbagers constitue un des principes clés de l'agroécologie, de l'agriculture biologique et des autres formes d'agriculture régénérative. A partir d’exemples pris en zones de plaine, de montagne ou méditerranéennes, nous montrons que la diversification des exploitations herbagères offre des leviers pour faire face aux aléas du marché, climatiques ou liés au collectif de travail. Cependant, la diversification n’est pas une stratégie « clé en main » et il est essentiel de tenir compte des conditions propres à chaque exploitation, pour que les processus écologiques que l’on cherche à optimiser fournissent les bénéfices escomptés. Faute de quoi, la diversification du système peut entraîner une perte d’efficience globale du fonctionnement de l’exploitation. Nous illustrons cette synthèse par des exemples de diversification à différents niveaux, depuis les pâturages et les ressources fourragères jusqu'à l'ensemble de l'activité de l'exploitation. Certains antagonismes qui se manifestent entre ces niveaux peuvent nuire à la biodiversité et aux services écosystémiques fournis par les prairies. Par exemple, lorsque la diversification des activités de l’exploitation dilue la main-d'œuvre agricole, une simplification du mode de conduite des prairies peut faire régresser des communautés végétales à haute valeur écologique. En revanche, une diversification raisonnée au cas par cas permet de tirer parti des ressources fourragères disponibles, d’opportunités locales pour commercialiser les produits, et de différentes aides publiques. La diversification préserve alors les services écosystémiques fournis par les prairies et améliore conjointement la résilience socio-économique des exploitations.
... Multi-species livestock farming and product diversification imply changes in sales management and in work organization . System redesign can even lead to a diversification of farm activities beyond the foodproducing role of agriculture (Hansson et al., 2010;L opez-i-Gelats et al., 2011). Biggs et al. (2012) have proposed a hump-shaped relationship between the level of system diversity and the resilience of ecosystem services. ...
... Transformative changes that enhance the resilience of pasture-based ruminant systems to market price fluctuations can include product diversification (Vagnoni & Franca, 2018) and development of an on-farm processing enterprise and short-distribution channels , with the aim of creating more added-value. Beyond product diversification, transformative changes can diversify farm activities beyond the food-producing role of agriculture (e.g., agritourism) and the full-time dedication of family members to farming activity (L opez-i- Gelats et al., 2011). ...
... Labour diversification outside agriculture, such as agritourism or off-farm employment may, however, be an attractive option for pastoral households in scenic landscapes. On the one hand, this kind of diversification disconnects farm income from climatic and economic risks related to agriculture (L opez-i- Gelats et al., 2011). On the other hand, it may increase land abandonment if the additional income is not reinvested into pastoral farming activities. ...
Diversification of grassland‐based systems is highly valued in agroecology, organic farming and other forms of regenerative agriculture. For lowlands, mountain and Mediterranean areas, we illustrate that diversification of grassland types, livestock species, products and farm labour allows coping with market, climatic and workforce‐related risks. However, diversification is not a one‐size‐fits‐all strategy and the type of diversification strategy should be adapted according to socio‐economic, structural, technical and pedoclimatic conditions of each farm. Farmers' technical skills and ability to re‐organise and monitor the system must be considered to avoid ineffectiveness of the diversified system. Moreover, it is essential to account for site‐specific conditions so that the ecological processes to be optimised can provide the expected benefits. Diversification occurs on different levels, from grassland management to the entire farm activity. There may be trade‐offs among these different levels impairing grassland ecosystem services. For instance, if diversification of farm activities dilutes the workforce, simplified grassland management can lead to the loss of vegetation communities of high ecological value. In contrast, case‐adapted diversification benefits from local opportunities, available resources and external supports to secure the system and favour sustainable resource management. Diversification thereby preserves grassland ecosystem services and enhances farm socio‐economic resilience to withstand perturbations.
... Mountain farming households have enacted adaptation strategies to cope with this situation by increasing the herd size, reducing labor dedicated to farming (García-Martínez et al., 2009) and diversifying their livelihoods, i.e. their capabilities, assets and activities that contribute to a means of living (Chambers and Conway, 1991). Livelihood diversification can occur in multiple ways, ranging from small adjustments that may imply reorganization of land, finances, or labor towards both agricultural and non-agricultural ventures on-farm, but also including off-farm, non-agricultural productive activities (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). Diversification in farm production may promote economic security at both the farm and regional levels (Abson et al., 2013). ...
... Forage crop farmland comprised the proportion of land allocated to foraging crops with respect to meadows since, beyond the communal alpine lands (i.e., forest and pastures), these are the key element defining the constraints in the quantity of feedstuff available for winter feeding (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). The stocking rate considered the availability of utilized agricultural area (UAA) (equivalent to forage surface in mountain livestock farming because of absence of cash crops) per livestock unit (LU) as a proxy for the degree of intensification of the system (Bernués et al., 2004;Riedel et al., 2007;Riveiro et al., 2013;Muñoz-Ulecia et al., 2021), whereas the herd type indicator described whether the productive orientation of the farm was either in large livestock (cattle/horses) or small ruminants (goats/sheep), according to the livestock species that held the highest value of Livestock Units (LU). ...
... Small family livestock farms have traditionally been the base of economic activity in Pallars. Livestock management relies on the seasonal use of natural resources through herd mobility practices moving between communal alpine pastures in summer and privately owned hay meadows and forage crop lands at lower altitudes in winter (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). Nowadays, farming is losing prominence amidst increased tourism-oriented and recreational activities that are redefining the identity of the region (Vaccaro and Beltran, 2007), in part due to the vast network of natural protected areas (Fig. 2. c). ...
CONTEXT
Ongoing decreases in family farms and livestock numbers in European mountain areas are linked to multiple interconnected challenges. The continuity of such farms concerns society at large since they also act as landscape stewards, and their management influences the provision of ecosystem services.
The livelihood resilience lens provides a means of examining how farm households respond and build their capacity to persist, to adapt to changes and shocks, and eventually transform what is understood as farming. While an increasing number of studies address livelihood resilience in different parts of the world, its link with livelihood strategies and how these enhance or erode livelihood resilience dimensions is still missing.
OBJECTIVE
We built and applied an indicator-based framework to characterize the livelihood strategies of mountain livestock farming households in the Catalan Pyrenees (Spain) considering local historical trends, to assess how these strategies contribute to their adaptive capacity.
METHODS
We combined sustainable rural livelihoods and livelihood resilience frameworks and operationalized them to: group farm households with similar livelihood strategies based on their income-generating activities; asses the influence of capital assets and context on the adoption of strategies; and relate these strategies with their performance in three dimensions of adaptive capacity, namely capacity for learning and adaptation, self-organization, and diversity. Information was gathered surveying a sample of 103 farm households.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
We identified five livelihood strategies showing different degrees of adaptive capacity. Farm households either intensified production (21.3% of the sample) or pursued various diversification pathways based on additional off-farm work (28.6%), rural-tourism activities (22.7%), or added-value production (13.3%). Pensioners (11.8%) had a low endowment of assets and presented the lowest estimates in several dimensions of adaptive capacity. In contrast, diversification into rural tourism scored higher in adaptive capacity, showing greater proactive capacity, farmer organization, and multiple income sources.
SIGNIFICANCE
We explored the multidimensional issues that influence and are influenced by the livelihood strategies and their adaptive capacity at the farm household level. Our work highlights the relevance of including income-generating activities in addition to structural, technical, and socioeconomic variables in characterizing farming systems. It demonstrates the role of farmer involvement in formal and informal social cooperation networks in the sustainability and adaptive capacity of their households. To be successful, diversification strategies may require certain prerequisites in the farms, while strategies based on off-farm activities, although they support improved financial performance of the farm household, could also contribute to the displacement of agriculture from mountain areas.
... This process has developed differently according to regional characteristics: for instance, with a strong depopulation in the Spanish Pyrenees, which is still evident today (Pinilla et al., 2008), or a change in the productive sector in the Federal State of Tyrol (Central Alps, Austria) (Siegl and Schermer, 2012). Large parts of the population engaged in agriculture diversified their economy in order to survive, combining, for instance, tourism with part-time livestock farming (Bernués et al., 2011;Lopez-i-Gelats et al., 2011;Tappeiner et al., 2008). The existing offer of agri-tourism, which combines the experience of daily life on a farm with tourism in contact with nature, includes Rural Tourism in Spain and Urlaub auf dem Bauernhof (Holidays on the farm) in Austria. ...
... Livestock farming in the Pyrenees has been linked in the course of time to transhumance, a technique that persists down to the present day: It consists in imitating the seasonal movements of large wild herbivores, grazing the herds in summer in the mountains and in winter in the lowlands (Lopez-i-Gelats et al., 2011;Montserrat and Fillat, 1990). In this way, the available resources are used cyclically. ...
... Unlike other mountain regions with a strong industrial sector, in many valleys of the Pyrenees tourism has been the chosen option in this situation, especially with regard to the practice of winter and mountain sports, activities related to the enjoyment of the natural environment or ecotourism. This fact implies that tourism is replacing livestock farming and agriculture (Lasanta Martínez et al., 2013; and that many of the remaining farms may have had to diversify, incorporating tourism as a component in their economies (Lopez-i-Gelats et al., 2011). The new predominance of the tourism sector can lead to a destabilisation of the other sectors, as a concentration of resources may provoke the detriment of traditional activities . ...
Since the second half of the 20th century, an expansion of the forest in European mountain areas due to agricultural abandonment has been observed. The reduction of the agricultural intensity implies the disappearance of semi-natural alpine meadows and pastures of great ecological and aesthetic value. This thesis proposes a computational model, using P systems, to simulate the future agricultural landscape evolution in the Catalan Pyrenees and in the Stubai Valley, located in central Alps, for a period of 30 years. In these regions, three simulated scenarios have been established: (1) Continuation of the observed farming trends, or maintenance of the status quo, (2) significant and (3) strong stocking rate reductions. The results show how the traditional agricultural surfaces decrease in all simulated scenarios in both study areas. Therefore, it is important to apply new strategies to preserve these cultural surfaces and the multiple ecosystem services for future generations before they disappear definitively.
... The data analysis follows the methodology proposed by Alvarez et al. (2014), López-i-Gelats et al. (2011 and Kostov & McErlean (2006) who recommend the use of multivariate statistics for the classification of farmers. López-i-Gelats et al. (2011) suggest the inclusion of expert knowledge and participatory approaches for building farming typologies to make typologies relevant to stakeholders. ...
... The data analysis follows the methodology proposed by Alvarez et al. (2014), López-i-Gelats et al. (2011 and Kostov & McErlean (2006) who recommend the use of multivariate statistics for the classification of farmers. López-i-Gelats et al. (2011) suggest the inclusion of expert knowledge and participatory approaches for building farming typologies to make typologies relevant to stakeholders. In this sense, informal interviews were conducted with former workers of the MST project (national coordinator and field technicians), staff of UNDP, staff in charge of agricultural development of the Municipality of Coyllurqui and staff of the Ministry of Environment. ...
... Previously, the relationship among variables was calculated with the Spearman correlation index. When variables were strongly correlated (absolute values greater or equal than 0.7 based on ter Braak, 1987in López-i-Gelats et al., 2011 only the most meaningful or the ones giving more information were retained for the multivariate analysis. Two kinds of ordination techniques were used for the multivariate analysis: unconstrained analysis through Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and constrained non-parametric analysis with the Analysis of Similarity (ANOSIM). ...
Small-scale farmers comprise the majority of farmers in the world. In the Peruvian Andes, small-scale farmers are guardians of invaluable traditional knowledge and agrobiodiversity but they commonly live in poverty and are frequently marginalized. Countless agricultural development projects have been implemented to promote the economic development of those farmers however, few try to assess the real impacts of projects that have been carried out over the years through development cooperation. The biophysical variability imposed by the Andean mountain range and the diverse socioeconomic realities condition a differentiated impact of those projects over farmers and communities. Through a diagnosis of farming systems, this study intends to shed light on the impact of an agricultural development project carried out in the southern Peruvian Andes. The results show that this project had an unequal impact between and within the studied communities in terms of capacity building, economic development and its sustainability over time. This issue, together with some social inequalities worsened by the project, invite us to reflect on the importance of ex-post evaluations in order to improve the design, harmonization, and sustainability of development projects.
... En zone de montagne, la moitié des exploitations laitières est engagée dans une démarche AOP, imposant le pâturage et l'utilisation de fourrages dans la ration des animaux. La diversité se révèle à différents niveaux : entre massifs, dans la gestion des prairies permanentes et du système fourrager, par le choix d'utiliser ou non des races rustiques, de diversifier les produits, les modes de commercialisation, et plus largement les activités et sources de revenus (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). Cette diversité est source de bénéfices non seulement pour les exploitations car elle permet de réduire l'usage d'intrants d'origine pétrochimiques et de leur substituer des services intrants (Therond et al., 2017), mais peut aussi soutenir les « services écosystémiques » rendus à la société par l'élevage de montagne Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005 (MEA). ...
... Ces exploitations tendent aussi à diversifier leurs activités afin de sécuriser leur revenu. Cette diversification passe par exemple par de la transformation à la ferme ou des activités para-agricoles telles que l'agro-tourisme (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). Pourtant, ces services peu évalués par les cinq outils que nous comparons ici. ...
In the frame of an agroecological transition of livestock systems, an evaluation of their diversity and multiperformance is needed. Here, we develop the case of mountain dairy systems. Five multicriteria evaluation tools are described, which are more or less specific for these systems. We analyse their ability to characterize system diversity and the ecological processes on which farm operation is based, along with the ecosystem services they provide. Several types of evaluation are described, from a global diagnosis (DIAG and BOT) to deeper analysis of specific aspects, such as environmental impact (CAP), durability of Cantal AOP farms (lAU) and diagnosis of the forage system (DIAM). Even though they share the common objective of evaluating farm multiperformance and sustainability, these five tools are different in their structure and investigation type. Overall, tools specifically developed for mountain dairy systems lead to a good evaluation of grassland management and diversity. However, they do not consider other aspects, such as animal health and the implication of farmer in the agroecological transition, which are only taken into account by less specific tools. Eventually, the more general tools seem more likely to sustain an agroecological transition and identify sustainable practices. All tools lack the ability to identify and assess animal diversity (intra-herd variability and mixed farming), which should be improved in forthcoming evaluation tools. © 2020 INRAE Clermont-Ferrand - Auvergne - Rhone-Alpes. All Rights Reserved.
... López-i-Gelats et al. [23] assets that farm diversification have become prevalent throughout the European countryside", and Fleischer and Pizam [21] considers RT as "the dominant factor in the rural economy of [some areas in] Western Countries". According to Briednham and Wichens [24] "RT is increasingly viewed as a panacea, DOI: http://dx.doi.org ...
... There is an obvious bias in writing on RT towards the Western European, which can be easily explained by the long established tradition of farm tourism in the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Austria [23]. Consequently, the possibility of transferring the theoretical models of RT development is problematic, "at least not without substantial modifications". ...
Rural and peripheral development is still a matter of concern in several western countries. Depopulation, low density of business activities, younger people emigration and better-qualified individuals feeling that such regions have been abandoned by the government, and incapable of moving on, are among the key indicators to “understand” rural and peripheral areas. Rural tourism has long been understood as an effective catalyst of change in depressed and deprived (of entrepreneurial capacity) areas and to explore a unique set of amenities. Because of funds directed to help private investment projects in rural tourism facilities, most peripheral areas are now relatively well endowed with key infrastructures. Nevertheless, the tourism lead approach produced mixed results due to low levels of demand in some areas and lack of a cooperative behavior among providers to maximize the opportunities offered by the wide range of attractions. In this paper, we investigate to what extent investments in infrastructure helped the rural tourism sector to attract more visitors in Madeira. Based on the panel-data approach, this paper provides insights to analyze the development path of rural tourism in Madeira and to explores how local policy makers may be the “missing link” needed to improve the sector prospects based on tangible and intangible amenities.
... Rural areas, such as the Pallars Sobirà, are increasingly oriented towards tourism and hence the tercialization of the rural economies. This can contribute to the simplification of farm management or its abandonment (López-i-Gelats, Milán, & Bartolomé, 2011). ...
... As a consequence of the increasing pressures on extensive farming a simplification of the management systems traditionally found has occurred which threatens their subsistence and hence the goods and services they provide to society (Dong et al., 2011;López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). During the last few decades, many extensive farms have been lost due to the aforementioned drivers which have led to land abandonment, depopulation or intensification of former extensive agricultural systems. ...
This study has thus explored the relationships and feedbacks between cultural practices
(agriculture, grazing, silviculture etc.) and biodiversity in the Mediterranean basin where it is documented and justified. To achieve this a combination of structured interviews held with experts on the nexus between biodiversity and cultural practices from 9 case studies in the Mediterranean, as well as a literature review was undertaken. Through the study it has been evidenced that a large amount of cultural practices related to biodiversity exist. This relationship is however less evidenced regarding water infrastructure and drystone walls. Literature exploring the nexus between cultural practices and biodiversity also presents a bias towards European countries, especially Spain and Italy. It is recommended that in the future studies should explore the nexus between cultural practices and biodiversity with efforts focused on field work and under a Mediterranean cooperation approach to assess differences and similarities between countries.
... These trends have triggered two major changes, which to a large extent are now driving the future of rural areas in Mediterranean countries. The first is a shift in public attitudes, from the consideration of grazing livestock farming systems as 'efficient food production systems' to 'systems of effective nature custody' (McNally 2001;Mitchley et al. 2006;Vaccaro and Beltran 2007;Pinto-Correia and Breman 2009;Eurobarometer 2010;López-i-Gelats et al. 2011;Bernard de Raymond 2013;Stock and Forney 2014). Some authors see this as a consequence of the increasing influence of urban and non-farming interests on these regions and their lifestyles (Vaccaro and Beltran 2007;López-i-Gelats et al. 2009) and the move towards a service-based economy that is fundamentally devoted to tourism (Strijker 2005;García-Martínez et al. 2009;Sutherland 2012). ...
... To adjust to the changing conditions and reduce the risk of low viability, farms are reorganising the factors of production at their disposal (Lobley and Potter 2004;Meert et al. 2005;Castel et al. 2010;Bernués et al. 2011;Grubbström et al. 2014;Suess-Reyes and Fuetsch 2016;Joosse and Grubbström 2017). In fact, the very adoption of organic production can be considered an adjusting strategy (López-i-Gelats et al. 2011). The role the adoption of organic production plays in these grazing livestock farms located in farming abandonment risk regions depending on multiple aspects, comprising herd composition, land access, labour availability and farmers' motivations, among others. ...
Mediterranean pastoralism is currently being exposed to multiple uncertainties. The emergence of organic production schemes has brought new opportunities for grazing livestock systems for three main reasons: (1) these regions present high risk of farming abandonment and the conversion of their livestock farming to organic production would definitively increase their economic viability; (2) the pasture-based farming systems practiced show excellent conditions to convert into organic production due to numerous similarities between conventional and organic practices; and (3) increasing evidence and voices are highlighting the potential of organic production to enhance rural development in marginal regions. Considering both the potential of the adoption of organic production to empower the traditional, pasture-based, low-impact livestock systems and the existing inconsistencies prevailing in the organic sector, a question arises: how effective is organic production in securing the sustainability of Mediterranean pastoralism? The objective here is twofold: identifying the main typologies of organic cattle farms in a particular region of Mediterranean Spain (Catalonia) and examining the implications of the adoption of organic production for the different groups of farms described. To do so, semi-structured interviews with organic cattle farmers were conducted and a combination of principal component analysis and cluster analysis was implemented. The investigation reveals that multiple expectations coexist among organic cattle farmers concerning their participation in organic production schemes. These dissimilar expectations are largely driven by the different access to pastoral factors of production identified among the farms, as well as their likelihood for generational succession.
... Des travaux de recherche ont toutefois été engagés ces dernières années, notamment dans les exploitations et les territoires de polyculture-élevage (Righi et al., 2011 ;Kremen et Miles, 2012 ;Moraine et al., 2014 ;Veysset et al., 2014 ;Ryschawy et al., 2017). Concernant la mixité des élevages (inter-et intra-exploitation), les travaux ont souvent ciblé certains de ses bénéices attendus : entretien des couverts (Loucougaray et al., 2004), performances animales (d'Alexis et al., 2014), régulation du parasitisme animal (Marley et al., 2006), organisation collective d'éleveurs (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). Dans ce contexte, il est diicile d'obtenir une vision complète de la diversité de l'élevage de ruminants et de son importance relative au sein d'un territoire, notamment au niveau infra-national (massif, région, bassin de production). ...
... Les diférences de gouvernance et de stratégie des AOP ont donc probablement un efet sur la diversité inter-exploitation des territoires d'élevages de montagne. À terme, des stratégies favorisant une « uniformisation » des systèmes de production dans des territoires hétérogènes du point de vue de leurs conditions naturelles et de leurs potentialités agronomiques pourraient compromettre l'adaptation et le renouvellement des exploitations (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). ...
L'élevage de ruminants présente une forte diversité inter-exploitation dans la région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. La diversité des activités et des produits intra-exploitation permet de faire face aux aléas du marché. Afin de mieux caractériser cette diversité de l'élevage à deux échelles, les auteurs mobilisent la typologie d'exploitation Inosys. Il ressort que 39% des élevages de ruminants ont plusieurs ateliers et que la majorité des élevages dits "spécialisés" vendent plusieurs produits. La diversité inter- et intra-exploitations est aussi inégalement répartie en montagne qu'en plaine
... Des travaux de recherche ont toutefois été engagés ces dernières années, notamment dans les exploitations et les territoires de polyculture-élevage (Righi et al., 2011 ;Kremen et Miles, 2012 ;Moraine et al., 2014 ;Veysset et al., 2014 ;Ryschawy et al., 2017). Concernant la mixité des élevages (inter-et intra-exploitation), les travaux ont souvent ciblé certains de ses bénéfices attendus : entretien des couverts (Loucougaray et al., 2004), performances animales (d'Alexis et al., 2014), régulation du parasitisme animal (Marley et al., 2006), organisation collective d'éleveurs (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). Dans ce contexte, il est difficile d'obtenir une vision complète de la diversité de l'élevage de ruminants et de son importance relative au sein d'un territoire, notamment au niveau infra-national (massif, région, bassin de production). ...
... Les différences de gouvernance et de stratégie des AOP ont donc probablement un effet sur la diversité inter-exploitation des territoires d'élevages de montagne. À terme, des stratégies favorisant une « uniformisation » des systèmes de production dans des territoires hétérogènes du point de vue de leurs conditions naturelles et de leurs potentialités agronomiques pourraient compromettre l'adaptation et le renouvellement des exploitations (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). ...
L'élevage de ruminants présente une forte diversité inter-exploitation dans la région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (AuRA). La diversité des ateliers et des produits intra-exploitation permet de faire face aux aléas du marché. Afin de mieux caractériser cette diversité de l'élevage à deux échelles, les auteurs mobilisent la typologie d'exploitations Inosys. Il en ressort que 39 % des élevages de ruminants ont plusieurs ateliers et que la majorité des élevages dits «spécialisés» vend plusieurs produits. La diversité inter et intra-exploitation est aussi inégalement répartie en montagne comme en plaine.
... In addition, the geography of marginal places often causes isolation, lack of institutional support, and discontinuity and weaknesses in the relation among territorial actors (which, according to the very recent study from Fazari and Musolino [49], already have a predominantly informal nature) [50]. In most marginal areas, the promotion of cultural and natural resources through projects involving local communities becomes an input for networking with local actors and civil society [44,47,51]. According to [44], the role of women and the young generation significantly contributes to developing farm diversification activities, although for social projects this does not imply significant economic income. ...
Social entrepreneurship plays a key role in making tourism an inclusive activity. Literature on the topic is increasing but needs to pay more attention to collaboration, which is crucial for social enterprises. To overcome this gap, the present study focuses on the impact that social entrepreneurs’ drivers and barriers towards collaboration might have on providing decent work in rural tourism. The research considers the case of social farming, which has important implications for developing inclusive tourism. By applying the coding technique to twelve in-depth interviews with social entrepreneurs in the Marche region (Italy), the research reveals different themes and sub-themes influencing the four pillars of decent work identified by the International Labour Organization. Results show that the drivers towards collaboration positively impact new employment opportunities and social security for social entrepreneurs and the most fragile people targeted by their services. Instead, the lack of resources for social businesses and the low embeddedness are the main dimensions hindering the provision of well-being through tourism. This study provides managerial and policy implications to sustain inclusive tourism activities in social farming. It concludes with the main limitations and possible directions for future research.
... We assume that these pressures and their interactions may specifically shape the importance and traits of agriculture in coastal areas. However, unlike mountain agriculture (Lopez-i-Gelats et al., 2011) or agriculture at the rural-urban interface (Inwood and Sharp, 2012;Hiner, 2016), coastal farming is discussed little in the scientific literature as a specific category of analysis. To date, the literature has addressed coastal farming from two main angles. ...
The forms and presence itself of farming in coastal territories changed profoundly in the 20th century. By contrast with other interface farming systems, such as mountain or peri-urban farming, coastal farming has rarely been studied as such and has not, until now, been considered as a useful category to describe and analyse production systems. The aim of this article is thus to address the relevance of such a categorization, using empirical data collected in Brittany (France) as well as contextual indicators, but also by carrying out a systemic qualitative-quantitative analysis, questioning the forms, depth and continuity of marine influence on farming activities at the local scale. We show that specific traits of coastal farming do indeed exist. A greater diversity of farming systems exists in coastal strip than inland at the regional scale. Four configurations of coastal farming were identified, which result from distinct dynamics and combinations of urbanization and environmental pressures on agriculture. But these specific features cannot be revealed without a comprehensive and historicized approach of its interactions with the coastal zone as a territory, rather than a biophysical milieu. These configurations are characterized in the typical spatial extent of coastal farming and spatial patterns of the transition to inland farming (gradient, discontinuities).
... During the second half of the 20th century, the world's agri-food systems were transformed by the process of globalization, with a shift towards a production-based, highly specialized system, which led to the intensification of agriculture at an industrial scale [1][2][3][4]. These changes had enormous repercussions on rural areas, in particular, on mountain areas [5][6][7], whose limited capacity to adapt to the new demands of the market led to the rapid abandonment of large swathes of cultivated land. At the same time, on the land that remained in production, traditional crops were replaced by other more productive crops that were easier to harvest and more attractive for the customer [8], all of which had a significant impact in terms of the loss of agricultural biodiversity and the degradation of cultural landscapes of huge heritage value [9][10][11]. ...
This article presents a systematic review of innovative projects funded by EU Rural Development Programs that were designed and implemented in rural areas of the European Union to facilitate the territorialized production of foodstuffs and their sale through alternative networks. On the basis of the results obtained in this review, we designed a model for the transfer of knowledge to the local community in the Alpujarra Granadina (Granada, Spain) within the framework of the LifeWatch project. This study uses two consecutive methodological approaches. We began by developing a protocol for the systematic search and analysis of successful rural development projects carried out in the European Union between 2007 and 2020. After that, we created a model for the transfer of results using a participative methodological approach. The results of our analysis of the group of projects selected for review show that the main innovations were made in different aspects of the product, process, sales and distribution. These innovative ideas were implemented by rural communities with a high degree of collective initiative and intelligence and could potentially be replicated in other areas. The sample analyzed contains a wide array of novel, alternative formulas, which are transversal to the projects, so provide significant contents that could be used to activate a space for participation and debate, which could itself become fertile ground for the creation of new projects. In conclusion, this study provides the stakeholders in rural areas, in particular farmers, with a wide, systematically organized knowledge base that proposes solutions to shared challenges.
... This led to the selection of a set of variables indicative of distribution and use of area, physical and economic size of the ranch, productivity of production factors and intensification. These variables were checked, their correlation was calculated, and when correlations between variables were greater or equal to 0.7, the variable considered less relevant for the study was discarded (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011;Stylianou et al., 2020). This process resulted in the selection of eight variables: the utilised agricultural area (UAA; total area taken up by arable land, permanent grassland and permanent crops) in relation to the total area (UAA/TA), stocking rate (Livestock Units (LU)/UAA), the labour productivity measured through the LU and UAA in relation to the workforce (Annual Work Units = AWU; One annual work unit corresponds to the work performed by one person who is occupied on an agricultural holding on a full-time basis and is equivalent to a minimum of 1800 h worked per year), the percentage of UAA with improved pastures, the total hectares of improved pastures per LU, the total hectares of woodland (grazed and ungrazed) per ranch and the economic profitability, as measured through the income from the sale of livestock in relation to the UAA. ...
The Paraguayan Chaco has experienced, in the last few decades, some of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. In parallel, this region has registered an increase in the number of cattle heads of 60% in the last decade. Taking into account the high environmental and socioeconomic impact of this expansion, the aim of this work was to reveal how Beef–cattle ranching is carried out and to establish a typology that allows us to identify the different land-use patterns followed by the ranches. Data were collected using face-to-face structured interviews of 80 ranch owners. In the region ranches co-exist that practise the cow–calf system, the whole-cycle system and the fattening system. In all cases, ranches are very large, pasture based, highly specialised in Beef–cattle and export-oriented. Three groups of ranches were identified, being the main differentiating drivers: (i) the availability of the different production factors, (ii) the distribution of total area, and (iii) the degree of intensification in the use of capital, labour and/or technology per unit of agricultural area. In addition, it is noted that the years of activity of the ranches are related to these drivers. The typology of ranches contributes to a better understanding of one of the most active livestock frontiers in the world and shows that the expansion process taking place in the Paraguayan Chaco is associated with an intensification of Beef–cattle systems. These results provide a useful approach to develop policies that regulate the expansion of the cattle frontier in the Paraguayan Chaco.
... Figures courtesy of Gerald Nelson. Analysis based onThornton, et al., 2021 pastoral household is with tourism, the fewer resources it devotes to pastoralism, which triggers both agroecosystem and landscape degradation, as shown by enhanced shrub encroachment and simplification of forage and pasture practices, and social reorganization, as illustrated by the changing expectations about farming and mountain areas as a whole(López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). In the mid-18th century, the society in the area was characterized by the existence of a healthy pastoral sector and local industry, based on the integral use of the environmental resources, pluriactivity (several livelihood strategies) and constant exchanges with foreign regions(Iriarte, 2002). ...
Climate change scenarios have significant implications for the livelihoods and food security of particular groups in society and will necessitate a range of adaptation actions. While there is a significant literature on the social as well as biophysical factors and limits to adaptation, less is known about the interactions between these, and what such interactions mean for the prospects of achieving sustainable and resilient food systems. This paper is an attempt at addressing this gap by examining changing biophysical and social factors, with specific consideration of vulnerable groups, across four case studies (Ghana, Malawi, Norway and Spain). In each case, future climate change scenarios and associated biophysical limits are mapped onto four key social factors that drive vulnerability and mediate adaptation, namely scale, history, power and politics, and social differentiation. We then consider what the interaction between biophysical limits and socio‐political dynamics means for the options for, and limits to future adaptation, and how climate may interact with, and reshape, socio‐political elements. We find that biophysical limits and socio‐political factors do not operate in isolation, but interact, with dynamic relationships determining the ‘space’ or set of options for sustainable adaptation. By connecting the perspectives of biophysical and social factors, the study illuminates the risks of unanticipated outcomes that result from the disregard of local contexts in the implementation of adaptation measures. We conclude that a framework focusing on the space for sustainable adaptation conditioned by biophysical and social factors, and their interactions, can help provide evidence on what does and does not constitute sustainable adaptation, and help to counter unhelpful narratives of climate change as a sole or dominant cause of challenges in food systems.
... The rapidly changing circumstances encourage farmers to reallocate, adjust and reorganize their agricultural production modes and move towards offfarm sources to supplement household income. This process of restructuring is especially severe in the mountainous farming regions which are particularly vulnerable to socio-economic and environmental transformations (López-i-Gelats et al. 2011). These communities opt for 'livelihood diversification', i.e., the use of farm and off-farm resources to diversify income channels to sustain their livelihoods (Kassie et al. 2017). ...
Non-farm income sources are important for livelihood sustenance, especially in the mountainous regions of developing countries. To implement effective policies to improve economic development, policymakers need insights at the grassroots level. Yet, there is a lack of empirical evidence in the context of Pakistan. This study examines the current situation and the factors influencing the decision by farmers to engage in other gainful activities (OGAs) such as farm diversification and off-farm work in the northern mountainous regions of Pakistan. The study is based on quantitative survey data obtained from 459 farm managers and qualitative data from 24 key informants from five different districts in Gilgit-Baltistan. Utilizing a logistic regression model, a statistical analysis is conducted on farmer and farm characteristics to investigate the probability of farm managers to engage in OGAs. The survey results show that around 71% of farm managers are engaged in OGAs (with 24% in farm diversification, 61% in off-farm work and 15% in both). The share of female farm managers is 51% in farm diversification while male farm managers dominate off-farm activities (69%). The most prevalent types of farm diversification are the processing of farm products and tourism-related farm work, while the main off-farm activities are setting up grocery stores outside the farm, having salaried jobs or engaging in other non-agricultural business. There are significant differences between farmers with and without OGAs particularly regarding farmer characteristics, agricultural income and some other variables. The logit model results show that farmer characteristics mainly determine off-farm work activities while farm (and other) characteristics mostly explain farm diversification. These findings suggest that OGAs primarily exist as livelihood strategies. Farm diversification is linked with the long-term sustenance of agricultural activities while off-farm work is predominantly driven by economic needs. Both types of OGAs require specific support policies while attention needs to be given not to threaten regional food supply.
... The impacts of the projected warming on mountain farming, as well as their adaptation strategies, differ spatially because the socioeconomic role of mountains varies significantly between industrialized and industrializing or non-industrialized countries (Nogués-Bravo et al., 2007). Mountain grasslands in developed countries are usually managed via a sub-exploitation model that involves the intensive use of the most productive areas and the abandonment of those regions where production is economically less viable (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). In contrast, mountain grasslands in developing countries remain centers of fodder and livestock production. ...
... Data retrieved from the MAB study from the 1970s enabled us to gain a broad picture of the communities and their resilience dynamics at the time, even if they are not very comprehensive. As for any investigation of community resilience (Levine, 2014;Wilson, 2012b), we acknowledge that the evaluation and interpretation of the individual aspects of resilience remain subjective. Nonetheless, the long-term comparison allowed us to take a more dynamic perspective and to identify the different long-term development pathways of the two villages. ...
Tourism, especially in the European Alps, contributes to rural livelihood and depends on farming to preserve the landscape. The symbiosis is also expected to strengthen community resilience, conceptualized as a combination of economic, social, cultural, political and natural domains. The interplay of these domains may result in path dependencies driven by lock-in effects, beyond which controlled development is basically not possible. In our study of two villages in the Austrian Alps, we investigate how long-term development pathways affect the domains of community resilience in terms of path dependencies and lock-ins. A document analysis of a former Man and the Biosphere project from the 1970s, combined with recent qualitative expert interviews enabled us to draw a longitudinal picture of both villages that highlights strengths and weaknesses of each domain. Conclusions reveal that the different development pathways of the communities still result in similar economic, structural and political lock-ins that reinforce path dependencies.
... According to the specialized literature, the current context of a high risk of abandonment of pastoral activity is largely due to the combined effect of three main processes taking place conjointly. (i) An economic restructuring, illustrated by the high and increasing opportunity costs of the resources that pastoralists require to carry out their activity, be it labour, land, etc., mainly as a consequence of the cohabitation of pastoralism with other activities (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). (ii) A social and cultural recomposition on the role of pastoralism as a whole, which shifts its main focus from the provision of products (meat, milk and wool) to the supply of services. ...
Important changes that have reconfigured the rural world in recent decades include the abandonment of inner and remote territories, and the growth of the immigrant workforce. Pastoralism provides an intriguing perspective on these processes, as it embodies the contradictions of an agricultural practice increasingly appreciated but decreasingly practiced. This work questions the contribution immigrant shepherds are making to the generational renewal of pastoralism in the Euro-Mediterranean context. The results point that their relevance in terms of generational renewal are limited, and mostly context specific. Migraciones pastorales y relevo generacional en el Mediterráneo
... Mountain farming in Europe is under severe pressure, for instance from out-migration of young people, loss of agricultural land to construction and infrastructure, continued afforestation of agricultural land, integration into the globalized market and other factors, which put its continued existence at high risk (L opez-i-Gelats et al., 2011). These mountain farms areas are mostly family-owned and family-operated (Blekesaune, 1996), and these, in particular, have to cope with growing uncertainty caused by these pressures (Darnhofer et al., 2016). ...
Purpose
By examining a case study in Tyrol, Austria, the paper aims to demonstrate the role of farm diversification and the influence of the peasants’ habitus on social-ecological resilience.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on a field study conducted in two remote villages of the Ötztal valley, Austrian Alps, this study provides insights into the interplay of tourism and farming and its impact on farm resilience. Qualitative narrative interviews, the so-called farm biographies, served to investigate these issues. Interpretations of data are based on qualitative content analysis.
Findings
The results highlight that farming and tourism are highly enmeshed in the case study area and that the additional income creates room for manoeuvre for the farms to activate their adaptive capability. At the same time, peasant values guide the farming activities. The farms in this study demonstrate a strong farm resilience that is enabled by farm diversification and rooted in their peasant habitus. This positively affects the social-ecological resilience.
Originality/value
In contrast to other studies, which have mainly applied the concepts of social or community resilience to investigate the resilience and vulnerability of rural areas, this study highlights the resilience of farms in mountain areas.
... El manejo ganadero consistía en el aprovechamiento estacional de los recursos naturales mediante la práctica de la trashumancia entre los prados de montaña, en verano, y los pastizales de fondo de valle, en invierno. (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). En la actualidad, la ganadería ha perdido protagonismo en favor de actividades del sector terciario orientadas al creciente turismo reclamado por las zonas protegidas, estaciones de esquí y museos culturales, que redefinen la identidad de la región (Vaccaro and Beltran, 2007). ...
Resumen La ganadería extensiva es una actividad multifuncional que sustenta los medios de vida de zonas de montaña. Sin embargo, la falta de viabilidad de las explotaciones, las empuja a un proceso de intensificación o abandono. Comprender la diversidad de formas de ganarse la vida entre las familias ganaderas es fundamental para el diseño de políticas efectivas que aseguren su continuidad y la producción de bienes públicos. El objetivo de este estudio es evaluar las estrategias de medios de vida entre las explotaciones ganaderas de dos comarcas colindantes del Pirineo Catalán: Pallars Sobirá, en la alta montaña y Pallars Jussà, en zona de valle. Se realizó una encuesta presencial a 103 ganaderos, agrupando la información en dos tipos de variables: 1) actividades o acciones que producen ingresos (tierra, trabajo, ganado y comercialización de productos); y 2) activos o recursos (fuentes de capital natural, físico, humano, social y cultural). Mediante un modelo de análisis de clases latentes se identificaron cuatro estrategias de medios de vida significativamente influenciadas por la combinación de activos familiares y la localización de las explotaciones. Las tendencias de abandono se identificaron en las zonas montañosas, donde los factores ambientales y las políticas de protección son más restrictivas, mientras que la intensificación, se extendió en los valles, con mayor productividad.
... Recently this kind of farm classification (for example into clusters) played an important role to identify those aspects of the production system that should be improved (Gelasakis et al., 2017). Some researchers described indeed different typologies of pasture-based farming systems in different countries (Nahed et al., 2006;Ruiz et al., 2008Ruiz et al., , 2009 and others focused on the classification of farming systems on the basis of numerous variables related to the production process (Castel et al., 2003;López-Gelats et al., 2011;Paz et al., 2005;Usai et al., 2006). The rationale behind our study is that a classification of the farms might help Italy and Turkey to identify some improvement strategies or policies for the dairy goat sector taking into account the variety in their socio-economic structures and it could provide target information to the dairy goat farmers in order to improve farm management. ...
Our objective was to classify and characterize dairy goat farms on the basis of some socio-economic aspects in two Mediterranean countries, Italy and Turkey. Random samples of 11 farms from the north-eastern part of Italy and of 18 farms from Çanakkale province in the west region of Turkey have been used. Farmers were interviewed using 44 indicators related to general farm characteristics based on socio-economic structure. For the classification of farms, Principal Component Analysis and cluster analysis have been performed. Farms have been classified into 4 clusters. Cluster 1 (6 farms, 20.7%) included “Intensive/Semi-intensive, medium-sized with high owned land area, using technology Italian farms”. Cluster 2 (5 farms, 17.2%) included “Intensive/Semi-intensive, large-sized with high amount of concentrate feed supply, using technology and with highly cheese production Italian farms”. Cluster 3 (14 farms, 48.3%) included “Semi-intensive, medium-sized, mostly member of cooperatives, directly raw milk seller Turkish farms”. Cluster 4 (4 farms, 13.8%) included “Intensive/semi-intensive, large-sized with high land area, member of cooperatives, work with highly hired labour, directly raw milk seller Turkish farms”. Results of this study point out the main differences between Italian and Turkish farms, mostly related to the farmer education level, the use of technology, the marketing and organization structure, and the milk yield. However, the older age of the farmers, their membership of union breeders and their commitment to a second economic activity to provide extra income were the more common features. In conclusion, taking into account this socio-economic variety between countries, outcomes of this study might help to identify some possible requirements for developing new strategies and policies on the dairy goat sector during the EU-harmonization process in Turkey.
... Hansson et al. (2010) described two ways to transform a farm through diversification toward enhanced resilience: either by adding a new activity (fattening, adding a new species, etc.) within conventional APS or by developing a para-agricultural activity using the farm's resources, such as a processing enterprise (farm-made cheese, processing pork into sausages, etc.) or agritourism ( Table 1). López-i-Gelats et al. (2011) reported these two farm trajectories in the Pyrenees with some farms relying on agricultural diversification (via the management of APS diversity) and others implementing farmland diversification (i.e., the shift away from the production of food to exploit the multifunctional nature of agriculture, e.g., through agritourism). They also identified a further level of diversification, labor diversification, which relates to the shift from family labor toward off-farm employment. ...
Animal production systems (APSs) have long been transformed through intensification, specialization and geographical concentration, leading them to become major anthropogenic drivers of pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss. Agroecology, organic farming and sustainable intensification have been proposed as alternative models to invert those trends. Diversity is highly valued in agroecology and organic farming, in which it is assumed not only to increase farm performance but also to strengthen farm resilience. Here, we examine how the diversity of system components and interactions among these components can increase productivity, resource-use efficiency and farm resilience in aquaculture, rabbit, monogastric and ruminant systems. In doing so, we reveal that the same processes can occur in very different systems. For instance, the higher performance of multi-species aquaculture or ruminant grazing systems results from (i) the complementary feeding habits of animal species that exploit resources from different ecological niches more efficiently; and (ii) facilitation or competitive exclusion, which results in a species increasing or decreasing resource availability for another species. The benefits of diversity are observed not only in relatively extensive systems but also in intensive indoor systems. For instance, genetic diversity is associated with herd and social immunity in rabbit production, while trade-offs between life functions play a major role in dairy herd performance. In the last section, we discuss how management options nested in system component diversity and their interactions can enhance system resilience. Strategic and tactical management of APS diversity can promote farm buffering and adaptive capabilities, respectively, via the abovementioned processes. By stabilizing the farm financial situation and facilitating access to short supply channels, transformative changes, such as a diversification of the animal species bred or development of a processing enterprise on farm, expand options for increasing the resilience of APSs to market price fluctuations and climatic shocks. However, the need for new technical skills and sometimes high initial investments can act asstrong inhibitors of farm diversification. We conclude with a description of some of theresearch or action that is needed for these principles to be more widely implemented incommercial farms.
... Since the mid-twentieth century, further changes have taken place in Europe's rural landscape, resulting in additional land use changes, including the abandonment of agricultural lands. Agricultural lands abandonment has been particularly evident in European mountain areas, in which remoteness and deficient communications limited farming mechanization, favouring the decline of traditional farming practices (MacDonald et al., 2000;Mottet et al., 2006;López-i-Gelats et al., 2011). The literature associates agricultural lands' abandonment to a combination of drivers including demographic, economic, technical, and institutional (van Vliet et al., 2015). ...
Through traditional practices that typically impact the surrounding natural areas, rural communities worldwide have created and maintained landscapes forming a diverse mosaic of species-rich habitats. In Europe, where a high portion of species is dependent on the persistence of traditional rural landscapes, the progressive abandonment
of agricultural activities has been often accompanied by a biodiversity decline, although the precise implications of landscape transformation for species and habitat conservation are not sufficiently well-known. This study applies ethnobiological and historical data collection methods (i.e., semi-structure interviews, participation
in public meetings, literature review, and participant observation) to examine changes in traditional management practices and local perceptions of impacts on ecosystems diversity derived from the abandonment of traditional land uses in a mountain region in Spain that preserved a complex traditional farming system until the mid-20th century. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis and quantitative data analysis
methods. Our results illustrate that traditional management practices, such as hay making, pastoralism of small ruminant livestock, lopping, prescribed burns, gathering of firewood, branch beating, or beekeeping, are locally perceived as favourable to habitat diversity. Our study also reveals that local perception of landscape changes in the area dovetails with scientific information, providing further understanding of the particular ecological implications of each underlying driver of land use change identified. We conclude that the combination of local and scientific knowledge on ecological dynamics can help in the development of effective regional conservation strategies based on management practices simultaneously favourable to biodiversity and economically profitable. Our study provides evidence that rural communities can be a valuable source of information to document landscape historical dynamics and to monitor environmental changes, which might be particularly relevant for landscape-orientated conservation policies aiming to prevent the biodiversity loss resulting from the abandonment
of traditional land uses.
... This paper aims at contributing to the literature on farm resilience through a study in the context of a Norwegian mountain community. Several studies pinpoint that structural changes in the agricultural sector affect farming in mountain communities more than lowland areas [7][8][9][10][11][12][13], which is due to variables such as remoteness, limited alternative sources of income to support farming, a small-scale land use pattern with limited possibilities for intensification, an ageing population, out-migration and lack of successors to farms, and climatic instability. At the same time, the mountain communities with landscapes formed by low-intensive land uses with a long continuity has led to valuable biodiversity and cultural heritage, as well as landscapes praised for their scenic beauty [8,9]. ...
The concept of socio-ecological farm resilience is used to understand how farmers manoeuvre in a context of change, what choices and priorities they make, and how that subsequently influences the development of the farming landscape. The author uses farm resilience, the capabilities of buffering, adaptation and transformation, and the response of bouncing back or forward as a conceptual frame in a study of farmers in a mountain community in Norway. Interviews were held with selected farmers. The results indicated that the resilience framework is useful in order to understand farmers’ priorities and situations. The author finds that the responses and decisions are in line with all three capabilities as well as with bouncing back and forward. However, most responses were categorized as bouncing back (i.e. adjustments and changes) but the logic of the farm system remained the same.
... Of this, activity related to tourism in all forms has become an important part of farm diversification in some regions, which is understood as the reorganization of farm resources to generate additional income [10], to battle the cost-price squeeze and to stem income fluctuation from food production [7]. Thus, findings from the Pyrenees indicate that farms shift their resources in time and labor away from agriculture in an effort to remain resilient [11]. ...
The general decline of mountain farming all over Europe suggests encouraging farmers to adapt their farm management and to diversify their activities into tourism. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the impact of different types of farmer-based provision of accommodation on the preservation of the farm and the identification of farmers with farming activities. For our investigation in the case study area of Ötztal valley, Tyrol, Austria, we applied a mixed method approach. First, we developed a heuristic concept for categorizing the types of farms that offer farmer-based accommodation. The term 'farmer-based' refers to entities who are active in accommodation services and farming. We collected quantitative data in an online survey and carried out a qualitative focus group. Results reveal the importance of farmer-based accommodation even if decoupled from farm activities within the case study area. This type also supports, next to the 'authentic' form of farm-based tourism, the existing agricultural structure and contributes to the positive impact of mountain farming such as for the maintenance of multifunctional cultural landscapes, the provision of ecosystem services, and the viability of rural communities. Therefore, we suggest considering decoupled forms of farmer-based accommodation as agritourism.
... among young people (EC, 2013), thus unemployed young people saw in rural areas an alternative source of work, and the traditional workforce was replaced with new, often young labor, coming from other sectors, both urban and rural (Bertoni and Cavicchioli, 2016); and (ii) the political environment -for example, the Common Agricultural Policy and the implementation of agricultural support policies, such as direct aid and basic payments, which favored large farms having a detrimental effect on the exit rate of farmers (Mishra and El-osta, 2008). Similarly, the promotion of diversification of activities, such as rural tourism (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011Mc Fadden and Gorman, 2016), and the implementation of agro-environmental policies (Paniagua, 2000), led to changes, including abandonment, in the activities related to livestock farms. ...
The livestock sector in Europe is currently undergoing multiple transformations. The challenges posed by these changes must be faced by an increasingly aged workforce. Promoting the incorporation of young farmers into the livestock sector would be crucial for ensuring that these challenges are met in the best possible way. It is generally agreed that young farmers face these challenges with greater dynamism, flexibility and adaptability. In spite of this, young people have to face many difficulties when trying to join the livestock sector. This study analyses different ways young farmers experience the process of incorporation into the livestock sector in one of the main livestock regions in Spain (Catalonia). The Q-Methodology was used to identify five pathways: the Traditional pathway, the Neo-rural pathway, the Business pathway, the Industrial pathway and the Agroecological pathway. The fact that these five pathways coexist evidences the complex and multidimensional nature of the process of incorporation of young livestock farmers into the sector. Finally we also observed that the incorporation of young livestock farmers, its possibility or impossibility, and the pathway followed by them, are largely conditioned by five main drivers: (i) the presence or absence of an agrarian family tradition; (ii) the capacity to access adequate land; (iii) the education level; (iv) the degree of innovation in livestock activities; (v) the degree of autonomy in decision-making.
... • Level of Diversification: It is expected that (some) diversified farms will have sufficient income that they do not need to undertake commercial agricultural production. The literature on farm diversification demonstrates that diversification can be undertaken either to accumulate wealth, or simply as a survival strategy (Evans and Ilbery 1993;Meert et al. 2005;López-i-Gelats et al. 2011). Diversification activities here include: processing and retailing, tourism and recreation, forestry, agricultural services, renewable energy or other non-farming activities. ...
In this paper we develop a typology of ‘non-commercial’ approaches to farming, based on a survey of a representative sample of farmers in Scotland, United Kingdom. In total, 395 (16.6% of the sample) farmers indicated that they do not seek to make a profit on their farms. We estimate that these non-commercial approaches to farming are utilised on at least 13% of agricultural land in Scotland. As such, non-commercial farming (NCF) is not a marginal practice, nor are NCF limited to small-scale ‘hobby’ farms: NCF exist across the scale of agricultural holding sizes and are operated by a wide range of socio-demographic cohorts. We identify 6 types of NCF: agricultural residences, specialist smallholdings, horsiculture holdings, mixed smallholdings, amenity mixed farms, and large farms or estates. These types were differentiated primarily by the scale of farm size, presence of diversification activities and types of animal present. The analysis demonstrates a number of emergent patterns of land management: de facto land abandonment, transition towards ‘horsiculture’, and management differences between retiring and new entrant NCF. We argue that the types identified reflect a number of intersecting issues in contemporary agrarian transitions, particularly the aging farmer population; generational renewal; and gendered implications of agricultural restructuring.
... Para explicar los cambios de los territorios de montaña se debe tener presente que los factores que los generan son variados y complejos: naturales, legislativos, económicos, financieros, político-institucionales, demográficos, culturales y sociales (Gellrich y Zimmermann, 2007;López i Gelats et al., 2011;Bernués y Olaizola, 2012;Lasanta et al., 2013;Vacquié, 2015). Teniendo en cuenta la citada complejidad y, aun siendo conscientes de la parcialidad de los resultados esperados, esta aportación se limita a una descripción e interpretación de la vertiente agraria del territorio de estudio. ...
En el Pirineo catalán, partiendo de una economía tradicional de base ganadera y forestal, el territorio se ha especializado desde la perspectiva económica en el sector terciario; hecho que también ha supuesto importantes cambios demográficos y sociales. En este territorio de montaña, el turismo -y en especial el turismo ligado a la nieve- ha sido uno de los principales motores de cambio y transformación territorial. Este artículo muestra la evolución del sector primario de los municipios de tres comarcas catalanas de montaña (Vall d’Aran, Pallars Sobirà y Alta Ribagorça) en las que el turismo de nieve ha tenido y tiene una importancia considerable. Para acometer este fin, y a partir de la consulta fundamentalmente del Censo Agrario, se han elegido algunos indicadores que han permitido observar las transformaciones en las actividades primarias de los 27 municipios considerados. Además, se ha analizado la evolución del sector bajo la perspectiva de la transición postproductivista. Los resultados indican que el área de estudio tiene una dinámica regresiva del sector primario en general parecida al resto del mundo rural catalán, aunque la existencia de un sector turístico muy desarrollado dota a este territorio de algunas sinergias de distinta índole entre ambos sectores.
... The management of refugia is complicated and common strategies such as targeted (selective) treatments (Charlier et al., 2014) to combat parasitic infections and especially limit the spread of resistant parasites are not widely adopted by farmers using communal grazing land. Furthermore, it has to be considered that mountain livestock farming is partly impacted by a lack of infrastructures and services (López-i-Gelats et al., 2011), including for example veterinary services. ...
In mountainous areas, where small ruminants form an integral part of livestock farming, an effective control of parasites is of high importance, because the animals are grazing on communal pasture land during the summer months. But knowledge on the infection status of the animals, which is needed for an effective control, is very
limited in these areas. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the prevalence of endoparasitic infections and the use of preventive measures in sheep and goat farms in South Tyrol, a mountainous region of Northern Italy. A questionnaire was used to collect information on farm structure and management as well as routine parasite control measures. Following the survey, a total of 3536 individual fecal samples from 123 sheep and goat flocks were analysed over three periods in autumn 2015, spring and autumn 2016 with routine methods including fecal egg counts (FEC) and oocysts counts (FOC). Animals were classified into <6 months, 7–12 months and >12 months of age. Goat flocks had an average herd size of 31 (range 5–125) and sheep flocks of 28 animals (range 2–100). Mountain sheep and goat breeds were dominant. More than 60% of the sheep and 40% the goat flocks were grazed on communal summer pastures at altitudes>1500m a.s.l. Both sheep and goat farmers perceived gastrointestinal strongylid nematodes (GIN) as the most frequent parasites. Only 16% of the sheep and 30% of the goat farmers ever before this study did coprological examinations. More than 90% of the farms applied anthelmintic treatments; usually once (sheep: 32%, goats: 53%) or twice (sheep: 68%, goats: 42%) per year.
Independent of the season, macrocyclic lactones were the most commonly used anthelmintics. More than 30% of the sheep-12 months and 16% >12 months were GIN-negative. Sheep <6 months had a lower FEC than animals of both other age classes (P < 0.05). In goats, 15.9% of the samples collected from animals <6 months were
GIN-free. Age classes, however, did not differ for FEC in goats (P > 0.05). Third-stage larvae identified in coprocultures were dominated by Teladorsagia/Trichostrongylus in both sheep (56.5 ± 24.5%) and goats (60.5 ± 25.8%). While in sheep lambs had a higher FOC than both other age classes, kids did not differ from goats at an age of 7–12 months but only from those >12 months (P < 0.05). In sheep, tapeworms were found in around 13% in both groups below 12 months and 6.5% in sheep >12 months, while these parasites were
identified in 18.5, 7.3 and 5.7% in goats<6 months, 7–12 months and>12 months, respectively. The prevalence of lungworms at flock level varied between seasons from 18 to 50% in sheep and 44–78% in goats. This first report on endoparasitic infections of sheep and goats in the mountainous region of South Tyrol reveals a high prevalence of endoparasites, especially GIN at a medium infection level, tapeworms and lungworms. Anthelmintics are regularly used, while fecal sampling for selective treatment only exceptionally. Therefore, parasite control measures should be optimized to reduce the risk for the development of anthelmintic resistance, which was already reported from neighboring regions.
L’agroécologie stipule que la gestion de la diversité animale et végétale au sein des exploitations d’élevage renforce leur durabilité. Pour aller au-delà de ce principe théorique, nous analysons ici le fonctionnement et les performances d’exploitations de polyélevage, c’est-à-dire de fermes dans lesquelles sont élevées au moins deux espèces animales. Dans les systèmes herbagers, la complémentarité des modes de pâturage des ovins, des bovins et des chevaux permet de réduire le recours aux aliments concentrés, en particulier pour les ovins. La dilution des parasites digestifs en pâturage mixte profite aux petits ruminants et aux chevaux, et permet d’envisager de réduire la fréquence des traitements anthelminthiques. Un atelier monogastrique de petite taille permet de valoriser les co-produits (petit lait...) ; la transformation laitière, créatrice de valeur ajoutée, et les faibles volumes de viande commercialisés sont bien adaptés à la vente en circuits courts. L’organisation du travail entre toujours en ligne de compte dans la manière d’articuler différentes espèces au sein d’une même exploitation. Plutôt que de vouloir maximiser coûte que coûte la diversité au sein du système, il s’agit avant tout de rechercher une cohérence d’ensemble que les éleveurs puissent gérer. Nous discutons enfin des freins au déploiement des fermes de polyélevage, liés à un système socioéconomique construit pour bénéficier des économies d’échelle offertes par la spécialisation. Pour dépasser ces freins, nous proposons des leviers en amont (innover pour des équipements et infrastructures polyvalentes), à l’aval (réorganiser la logique de collecte), et autour des exploitations d’élevage (revisiter la formation et le conseil) qui doivent être pensés de manière couplée.
This paper investigates and analyses social farming in the Aosta Valley, a tiny Italian mountain region in the Alps. It aims to highlight the features of social farming in this region, focusing on the social mission and economic sustainability. The paper first presents the literature on social farming, focusing on marginal and remote areas, and illustrating the main characteristics of Italian social farms. Secondly, it focuses on the findings coming from a qualitative investigation of three case studies of Valdostan social farms based on data collected from semi-structured direct interviews. The analyses reveal that social farming in the Aosta Valley fulfils a crucial social mission in areas with poor accessibility to social services. It is economically sustainable, basing its business model on the environmental and agricultural resources typical of high mountain regions.
Beekeeping is being impacted by climate change in the Mediterranean region. Examining the vulnerability of beekeeping to climate change is highly relevant not only due to the pollination services that honeybees provide; but also in terms of food security. To provide a comprehensive overview of the vulnerability of beekeeping to climate change, here we examined the exposure of beekeeping to climate drivers and the adaptation strategies undertaken by beekeepers in Mediterranean Spain. In doing so, we reviewed the scientific literature and performed focus groups with experts to identify the main drivers occurring and afterwards assess the beekeepers’ perceptions. The study discloses the complex nature of the vulnerability of Mediterranean beekeeping, with climate change being a contributing driver. While the specialized literature tends to highlight the spread of diseases, the spread of species hostile to honeybees, habitat loss and fragmentation, intoxication by both pesticides and acaricides, the colony collapse disorder, as well as climate change. The results of this work point that the transformations occurring within the socio-economic and policy domains tend to be dismissed. Results also point that the vulnerability of honeybees and beekeeping is not only characterized by the existence of multiple transformations, but also by the huge and diverse adaptation capacity of beekeepers. Diversification, Mobility, Intensification, Agroecology and Cooperation are the main groups of adaptation strategies identified. Finally, we also found that honeybee operations of different size rely on different adaptation strategies. This is highly relevant in terms of policymaking, since policy makers need to consider this diversity of farming practices when developing appropriate climate policies.
The aim of deliverable D3.1 was to make an initial introductory review of research projects and the wider literature on the topic of mixed farming in Europe, to use as a go-to resource for the further work in the MIXED Project and parallel research projects. A literature review covering a large and broad topic such as ‘mixed farming systems’ is challenging, and the report makes recommendations towards a narrower discipline focused literature search approach. As a research field, mixed farming has increased significantly since 2015 and with a noteworthy leap since 2018. Most of the funding towards mixed farming research is provided by the European Commission and 80% of the research is carried out by 6 countries alone. The data obtained from the literature search shows that agroforestry and mixed farming approaches, which incorporate trees and bushes, hold most of the data. The projects identified within the report also show an overrepresentation of an agroforestry focus and especially research focusing on energy-crops is wanting. The project identification has, however, been supported by project partners and stakeholders, which may have caused a bias in the data. Twenty-two projects were discarded from the analysis, due to not disseminating their research in English. All were from France, which highlights a potential barrier for knowledgebase sharing.
This study aimed to typify smallholders’ dairy systems using quali-quantitative measures of feeding practices and detect the main discriminatory elements identifying the systems. We collected data from 30 farms distributed in 10 municipalities in the eastern region of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, using a survey with semi-structured questions, in addition to bimonthly observations of milking and feeding practices. Multivariate analysis based on principal factors and cluster analysis were performed. Multiple linear regressions were made between the principal factors scores and variables of milk production and composition. Three principal factors with eigenvalues ≥1.0 explained 58.9% of the total variance. The original variables with the highest factor loading values were production scale and feeding practices involving greater quantities of byproducts; use of corn silage and sugarcane; and commercial and farm-made concentrate for principal factor 1, principal factor 2, and principal factor 3, respectively. Milk yield and concentrations of lactose and solids non-fat increased linearly with principal factor 1 and principal factor 3 but decreased linearly with principal factor 2. Observations were grouped into three clusters. Farm area and quantity of corn silage and byproducts were the most important variables to set the clusters. The use of quali-quantitative feeding practices criteria to characterize dairy systems is effective to identify the opportunities for improving milk production and composition. Whereas high inclusion of sugarcane as roughage was detrimental for milk production, moderate supply of concentrate and byproducts enhanced milk yield without compromising milk composition.
ABSTRACT This study aimed to typify smallholders’ dairy systems using quali-quantitative measures of feeding practices and detect the main discriminatory elements identifying the systems. We collected data from 30 farms distributed in 10 municipalities in the eastern region of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, using a survey with semi-structured questions, in addition to bimonthly observations of milking and feeding practices. Multivariate analysis based on principal factors and cluster analysis were performed. Multiple linear regressions were made between the principal factors scores and variables of milk production and composition. Three principal factors with eigenvalues ≥1.0 explained 58.9% of the total variance. The original variables with the highest factor loading values were production scale and feeding practices involving greater quantities of byproducts; use of corn silage and sugarcane; and commercial and farm-made concentrate for principal factor 1, principal factor 2, and principal factor 3, respectively. Milk yield and concentrations of lactose and solids non-fat increased linearly with principal factor 1 and principal factor 3 but decreased linearly with principal factor 2. Observations were grouped into three clusters. Farm area and quantity of corn silage and byproducts were the most important variables to set the clusters. The use of quali-quantitative feeding practices criteria to characterize dairy systems is effective to identify the opportunities for improving milk production and composition. Whereas high inclusion of sugarcane as roughage was detrimental for milk production, moderate supply of concentrate and byproducts enhanced milk yield without compromising milk composition.
Diet selection by grazing livestock may affect animal performance as well as the biodiversity of grazed areas. Recent DNA barcoding techniques allow to assess dietary plant composition in faecal samples, which may be additionally integrated by the description of gut microbiota. In this high throughput metabarcoding study, we investigated the diversity of plant, fungal and bacterial taxa in faecal samples of lactating cows of two breeds grazing an Alpine semi-natural grassland during summer. The estimated plant composition of the diet comprised 67 genera and 39 species, which varied remarkably during summer, suggesting a decline of the diet forage value with the advancing of the vegetative season. The fungal community included Neocallimastigomycota gut symbionts, but also Ascomycota and Basidiomycota plant parasite and coprophilous taxa, likely ingested during grazing. The proportion of ingested fungi was remarkably higher than in other studies, and varied during summer, although less than that observed for plants. Some variation related to breed was also detected. The gut bacterial taxa remained stable through the summer but displayed a breed-specific composition. The study provided insights in the reciprocal organisms’ interactions affecting, and being affected by, the foraging behaviour: plants showed a high temporal variation, fungi a smaller one, while bacteria had practically none; conversely, the same kingdoms showed the opposite gradient of variation as respect to the animal host breed, as bacteria revealed to be the group mostly characterized by host-specificity.
A l'heure où l'agroécologie met en avant les avantages de la diversité animale et végétale, les exploitations qui ont résisté à la généralisation de la spécialisation productive peuvent apparaître comme pionnières pour repenser l'élevage face aux enjeux actuels. Nous proposons une analyse comparée des systèmes mixtes bovins-ovins, bovins-équins, bovins lait-viande et de polyculture-bovins viande du nord du Massif central, un territoire où les élevages d'herbivores diversifiés restent nombreux, et discutons des particularités de chaque système et de leurs similitudes.
In view of the foremost concern about the generational renewal in livestock farming, the identification of both the drivers that determine the process of incorporating young farmers into the livestock sector, as well as the strategies young people implement to do so becomes of great interest. In order to examine this, the process of incorporating young farmers into the livestock sector was examined in the region of Catalonia. We conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews of young farmers and used a combination of principal component analysis and cluster analysis. The results point to the existence of three main groups of strategies: (i) taking advantage of the family tradition; (ii) the adoption of agro-ecological management, and (iii) the vertical integration with a mother company. The implementation of different strategies seems to be determined by the differentiated exposure to the following drivers: (i) the existence of an agrarian tradition in the family; (ii) the existence of a desire to experience a change in lifestyle by the young farmer; (iii) the degree of agricultural professional training and knowledge available; (iv) the capacity and/or willingness to respond to the new demands emerging in society in rural areas and livestock farming in particular; (v) the capacity and/or willingness to implement innovative strategies; (vi) the presence and relevance of women in the livestock farm; (vii) the desired degree of self-management and autonomy in decision-making by the young farmer, and, finally (viii) the capacity and/or willingness to do the required paperwork to have access to the available aid programs. The three groups of strategies identified fit into two different farming models - the Industrial Production and the Re-peasantization models –each of them having very different implications and needs. In any case, the existence of this multiplicity of strategies and drivers indicate the complex nature of the process of incorporating young livestock farmers.
Social farming helps mountain farms to deal with current socioeconomic challenges that threaten the cultural identity and traditions of mountain areas. It is an innovative bottom-up initiative that addresses societal needs and complements institutionalized social services. In the north Italian province of South Tyrol, social farming is mainly implemented by women farmers offering educational services on their farms. This paper examines how these activities influence the transmission and transformation of (agri)-cultural values of mountain farming in South Tyrol. Data were extracted from a 2017 online survey among farmers who offered educational services in this province. The results demonstrate that farms offering these services are distributed throughout the whole region. Through the variety of topics included in their lessons, farmers have a key role in transmitting (agri)-cultural values and traditions to nonfarmers. Although farm-based educational services in general may increase a farm's income, the results show that they contribute little to the economic viability of the farm. Nevertheless, these services provide an interesting field of action, where all family members can share ideas and interact with children, teachers, and parents. In parallel to cultural transmission, farm-based educational services can therefore transform traditional (agri)-cultural values in family farms, shifting from traditionally patriarchal values. Women farmers, in particular, gain an opportunity to acquire new skills and a personal income, independent of agricultural production. Therefore, the provision of these services contributes to the social sustainability of family farms.
Farmland abandonment is considered as an important phenomenon for changing eco-environmental and sociocultural landscapes of mountainous rural landscape. Many studies have analyzed farmland abandonment, its driving factors, geophysical processes and consequences at landscape: however, very few have focused on mountainous developing countries such as in Nepal, which is a rapidly urbanizing country suffering from serious farmland abandonment. Therefore, our study was an attempt to (i) assess the spatiotemporal extent of farmland abandonment in Nepal, (ii) explore driving factors of farmland abandonment, and (iii) discuss on the eco-environmental and sociocultural consequences in Nepal. We reviewed various literature, documents, and national reports to obtain a dataset pertaining to the overall status of farmland use and changes along with political and socioeconomic changes, economic development processes, and policy and governance in Nepal. Our results showed that farmland abandonment is widespread; however, it is more prevalent in the hilly and mountainous regions of Nepal. A total of 9,706,000 ha, accounting for 23.9% of the total cultivated farmland in Nepal, was abandoned during the period of 2001 to 2010. The driving factors included population growth, scattered distribution of settlements, urbanization, socioeconomic development, poor access to physical services, and poor implementation of agriculture development policies. Furthermore, the increasing extent of natural disasters, malaria eradication, land reform and resettlement programs, the complex system of land ownership, land fragmentation, political instabilities, and the intensification of trading in agricultural products also acted as drivers of farmland abandonment in Nepal. Farmland abandonment generates negative effects on rural societies eco-environmentally and sociologically. Abandoned plots were subjected to different forms of geomorphic damage (e.g. landslide, debris flows, gully formation, sinkhole development etc.). Farmland landscape fragmented into a group of smaller interspersed patches. Such patches were opened for grassland. Furthermore, farmland abandonment also has effects on the local population and the whole society in terms of the production of goods (e.g., foods, feed, fiber), as well as services provided by the multi-functionality (e.g. sociocultural practices, values and norms) of the agricultural landscape. Therefore, this study plays an important role in planning and implementing eco-environmental management and social development processes in Nepal.
Agricultural employment, in sharp decline in Europe, is the subject of little recent scientific work, and few studies focus specifically on livestock farming. Labour and employment factors must be considered to respond appropriately to the livestock farming “crisis” in Europe and to assess the room to manoeuvre of public policies to adapt this sector to the diverse challenges facing it. We have conducted a review to assess the combined effects on ruminant livestock employment and famers' work at the European level. In the first section, employment in ruminant livestock farms is quantified and the main differences between livestock sectors and regions are identified. We have showed that in France, livestock activities mobilize 41% of the French agricultural workforce at the national level, but due to territorial diversity, there are significant variations across the country. In Europe, while all countries are affected by a reduction in the livestock workforce, employment trends also vary de- pending on the animal sector. In the second section, we analyse trends in farmers’ work that could explain the evolution of agricultural employment in terms of slowing or accelerating the reduction in the livestock work- force. Our results highlighted supply-driven factors and demand-driven factors tend to increase the number of livestock workers. Some structural and institutional changes play a greater role as both an accelerator and moderator of the decline in livestock workers. The third section focuses on the effects of livestock employment on other industries. We show that the indirect and induced effects of livestock farming vary according to activity sector. Dairy farms have higher induced effects, especially at the national level. The development of processing activities can be limited locally by the low appeal of most of the jobs. In the conclusion, we highlight four major issues concerning employment and work in the livestock sector at the European level.
This paper develops an identity-based rationale to investigate why winery owners resist and/or limit their engagement in agritourism diversification. Using qualitative evidence from a sample of Italian winery owners, the paper draws on social identity theory to explain how owners' identities affect tourism diversification. The findings reveal that they actively construct a producer identity and that this identity is simultaneously regulated by various institutional forces (e.g. local winemaking community), which in turn shape their reluctance to pursue tourism diversification. The paper contributes to a better understanding of why agricultural producers resist tourism diversification. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed.
This paper examines the motivations underlying family wineries' decisions to diversify into agritourism. Empirical evidence is provided by a sample of North Italian family wineries that have recently engaged in agritourism. While the majority of studies have adopted an economic-noneconomic dichotomy approach when examining the motivations for agritourism diversification, this paper highlights the limitations of this approach, outlines the complexity of motivations and argues for the need to take the family context into account. Drawing on the socioemotional wealth (SEW) framework, we offer a conceptual model and derive a set of propositions to show how family owners' motivations for agritourism diversification are primarily driven by family-centred goals. This paper thus contributes to a better understanding of diversification in general, and of farming families' motivations for agritourism diversification in particular. Practical implications at the European and regional level are discussed.
Land abandonment is a complex multi-dimensional process with interlinked economic, environmental and social aspects. This paper presents a case study of an isolated hill sheep farming community in SW Ireland, where a combination of low incomes, ageing population, lack of successors and strong environmental constraints are perceived to be among the main factors leading to their demise. However, the uplands they have grazed for generations are of high nature conservation value, and depend on active management to maintain both their ecology and landscapes. The research, which is based on a combination of interviews and farming systems research, highlights the misfit between what the mountain can produce, light hill lamb, and what the globalised market demands. The paper argues that if ‘farming for conservation’ is the new function of such farming systems, then we should consider decoupling public goods payments from agricultural subsidies, along with integrating agriculture in disadvantaged areas within a broader rural development framework. The research aims to fill the gap between macro policy and the micro reality of an upland community on a self-declared ‘tipping point’.
The protected natural areas of Ecuador face several environmental threats; grazing is one of them in several national parks (NP) including the Cotopaxi National Park (CNP). National Park managers are proposing action alternatives to reduce grazing environmental impact while promoting social and economic development of cattle ranchers and the other stakeholders. For the success of any of these actions, as much consensus as possible is needed among all involved stakeholders. In this paper, the Analytical Network Process (ANP) is used to modeling the decision problem and helping stakeholders to participate assessing the sustainability of the solution alternatives. In the presented methodology, a panel of experts in natural areas management was arranged to determine the decision model i.e. the network of criteria and alternatives structured into clusters. Ten criteria were set in 6 clusters: 3 environmental-atmospheric, soil and water contamination-, 1 social, 1 economic and 1 cluster of alternatives. The alternatives, included in the revision of the NP management plan, were: Physical delimitation of the park and control of the entering livestock, Development of productive alternatives to grazing, and Pasture subsidies. The findings confirm that stakeholders hold different interests, approaches to sustainability and sensitivities. After ANP all stakeholders understand better their interests and the others'. Thus, an improved participation is obtained and consensus or at least general agreements are more likely. Also a better commitment to the overall objective is achieved as the decision model facilitates improving the alternatives design in order to lessen the possible burdens for specific stakeholders or the environment.
The protected natural areas of Ecuador face several environmental threats; grazing is one of them in several national parks (NP) including the Cotopaxi National Park (CNP). National Park managers are proposing action alternatives to reduce grazing environmental impact while promoting social and economic development of cattle ranchers and the other stakeholders. For the success of any of these actions, as much consensus as possible is needed among all involved stakeholders. In this paper, the Analytical Network Process (ANP) is used to modeling the decision problem and helping stakeholders to participate assessing the sustainability of the solution alternatives. In the presented methodology, a panel of experts in natural areas management was arranged to determine the decision model i.e. the network of criteria and alternatives structured into clusters. Ten criteria were set in 6 clusters: 3 environmental-atmospheric, soil and water contamination-, 1 social, 1 economic and 1 cluster of alternatives. The alternatives, included in the revision of the NP management plan, were: Physical delimitation of the park and control of the entering livestock, Development of productive alternatives to grazing, and Pasture subsidies. The findings confirm that stakeholders hold different interests, approaches to sustainability and sensitivities. After ANP all stakeholders understand better their interests and the others'. Then, the Social Network Analysis (SNA) is added to identify the relationships among all the involved stakeholders. Besides, the SNA results allow finding out who is supporting who, or who is against who. Finally, SNA can be used for ranking the influence of the stakeholders themselves. This way a better understanding of the decision processes is obtained. SNA results are used to assign weight to the stakeholders' preferences in the ANP. Thus, an improved participation is obtained and consensus or at least general agreements are more likely. Also a better commitment to the overall objective is achieved as the decision model facilitates improving the alternatives design in order to lessen the possible burdens for specific stakeholders or the environment. 2
Heeding calls for contextualizing entrepreneurship research and for greater attention to the role of sector in entrepreneurship research, we conduct a systematic literature review of extant research in agricultural entrepreneurship. Recent and rapid vertical integration and rationalization within the agricultural sector provides a dynamic setting for scholars to investigate entrepreneurship theory and practice. We identify three key contextual dimensions of the agricultural sector: identity, family, and institutions, which provide promising opportunities for future research and the potential to contribute to and extend current theoretical and empirical analyses of entrepreneurship research.
To assess the impact of environmental change on biological communities knowledge about species-environment relationships is indispensable. Ecologists attempt to uncover the relationships between species and environment from data obtained from field surveys. In the survey, species are scored on their presence or their abundance at each of several sampling sites and environmental variables that ecologists believe to be important are measured.The research that led to this thesis aimed to unravel the assumptions required for the application of statistical methods that are popular among ecologists to analyse such data. From a statistical point of view, species data are difficult to analyse:- there are many species involved (10 - 500),- many species occur at a few sites only. So the data contain numerous zeroes,- relations between species and environmental variables are not linear, but unimodal: a plant, for example, preferably grows under for that species optimal moisture conditions and is encountered less frequently at drier or wetter sites. A mathematical model for a unimodal relationship is the Gaussian response model.Standard statistical methods such as linear regression, principal components analysis and canonical correlation analysis are often inappropriate for analysing species data because they are based on linear relationships. One of the methods that ecologists use instead is correspondence analysis. This thesis contributes to the understanding of the underlying response model.With correspondence analysis, species and sites are arranged to discover the structure in the data (ordination) and the arrangement is subsequently related to environmental variables. It is an indirect method to detect relations between species and environment, hence R.H. Whittaker's term "indirect gradient analysis".Correspondence analysis has been invented around 1935 but did not receive interest from ecologists before 1973 when M.O. Hill derived the technique once more as the repeated application of "weighted averaging" - a method that was familiar to ecologists ever since 1930. Weighted averaging has the advantage of being simple to apply. The method can be used for two different aims: (1) to estimate the optimum of a species for an environmental variable and (2) to estimate the value of an environmental variable at a site from known optima of the species present (calibration).In chapter 2, estimating optima by weighted averaging is compared with the results of non-linear regression on the basis of the Gaussian response model. Under particular conditions, both methods agree precisely. In other cases, weighted averaging gives a biased estimate of the optimum and non-linear regression is the method to be preferred. An additional advantage of non-linear regression is that it can also be used to fit response models with more than one environmental variable. In chapter 3, weighted averaging to estimate the value of an environmental variable is compared with calibration on the basis of the Gaussian response model. Also in this context the techniques are sometimes equivalent. Chapter 4 deals with correspondence analysis. It is shown that, under particular conditions, correspondence analysis approximates ordination on the basis of the Gaussian response model, which is computationally much more complicated.To detect relations, indirect methods have an important disadvantage. The impact of some environmental variables on the species composition can be so large that the impact of other interesting environmental variables may fail to be detected. This problem can be overcome by using non-linear regression, but with many species and environmental variables this is laborious. In chapter 5, a simpler "direct" method is proposed, canonical correspondence analysis. In chapter 6, canonical correspondence analysis turns out to be a multivariate extension of weighted averaging. The results can be displayed graphically. In chapter 7, an extension with "covariables" is discussed, which leads to partial canonical correspondence analysis. Chapter 7 also shows that Gaussian models and, hence, canonical correspondence analysis are relevant to the analysis of contingency tables.Chapter 8 describes a study to estimate ecological amplitudes of plant species with respect to Ellenberg's moisture scale from species data alone. The question that is addressed as well, is how consequent Ellenberg's moisture indicator values are.Finally, chapter 9 cross-tabulates various gradient-analysis techniques by the type of problem (regression, calibration, ordination, etc.) and the response model (linear or unimodal). Furthermore, improvements are proposed for detrended correspondence analysis. A computer program, named MOM is written which can perform most of the methods discussed.
There is a widespread assumption that associates the rural with the unchanged and unchangeable. However, what constitutes ‘the rural’ is under constant transformation. In rural Europe a rapid process of social recomposition and economic restructuring is taking place causing increasing social complexity and new disputes about what is and should become the rural. This is more apparent in mountain areas, being locations that are particularly vulnerable to change. This situation is reflected in the growing diversity of discourses of rurality, which struggle to impose their particular views and interests on others. Nevertheless, little attention is paid in understanding the multiplicity of representations and interests held by rural dwellers about their own world. This paper aims to explore the diversity of perceptions and perspectives held by the inhabitants of the county of El Pallars Sobirà, in the Catalan Pyrenees. The material provided by semi-structured interviews given to local residents has been analysed through the Q methodology. As a result, four discourses of rurality have been identified, namely: the agriculturalist, entrepreneurial, conservationist and endogenous development. Finally, we argue that an underlying social structure, derived from the experiences of local dwellers of the rural population movements and the tertiarisation of local economies, exists behind the organisation of the debate on the rural. This leads us to assume that not only perceptions, but also socioeconomic reorganisations are in dispute.
The objective in this paper is to identify driving forces and favourable factors that ensure the persistence of mountain livestock farms over time. The paths and processes of change are studied in a sample of 14 existing livestock farms near Chambéry in the Savoie, adopting a retrospective approach going back to the 1950s. The authors focus on key factors: workload, dairy restructuring and off-farm job opportunities. The results show that in this area, livestock farms have persisted thanks to the integration of other farming or off-farm activities in the farm-family system during at least one phase of their history.
Land cover mapping obtained from photointerpretation of aerial photographs and orthophotographs was used to quantify land cover changes between 1957 and 1996 in a Mediterranean middle mountain area. Expansion of forested area is clearly the main land cover change caused by the abandonment of traditional agricultural activities and by the use of other materials and energy sources instead of forest resources. As a result, about 64% of the area was covered by forest by 1996, whereas in 1957 forests accounted for only 40% of the land cover. Spontaneous afforestation of abandoned fields with Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) in terraced areas and areas of sparse scrub vegetation, coupled with an increase in the density of forest canopies, has been responsible for this expansion of woodland. The influence of physiographic factors in land cover change processes in the terraced areas of the catchment was also considered. The results demonstrate that within the terraced areas, north-facing and more elevated steeper slopes are more intensely afforested. However, an accurate analysis of the role played by these factors in land cover change cannot be carried out because the pattern of land abandonment is not independent of these physiographic characteristics. Furthermore, field observations at the terrace scale are evidence of the relevant influence of local topography in afforestation dynamics.
Over the last 15 years livestock farms in Europe have faced considerable changes in their socio-economic environment. Furthermore, many of these farms are situated in areas with heavy environmental and agronomic constraints. Adapting spatial management to socio-economic changes is a real challenge for these farming areas. This research work analyzes and compares the forms of assignment and management of farm territories in mountain areas of French Massif Central. It also describes various forms of farm adaptability with regard to spatial management. The studied area covers two agricultural regions where permanent grassland and cattle farming predominate. We investigated the spatial management of thirty three livestock farms and its links with cattle management and the farming system. The analysis confirms the role of known factors influencing land use (relief, distance, agronomic potential, etc.). Other less known factors have also been identified: collective mountain land management, location of buildings assigned to animals, environmental or production specifications, collective family farm organization. All of these factors are combined in different ways, revealing distinct spatial management in livestock farms, particularly in terms of fodder securing systems. Moreover, we highlighted that the spatial management is a good clue to analyse the adaptation possibilities of livestock farms. It results from a combination of several constraints, concerning the agro-climatic conditions, the farm-land lay-out, the conditions of implementation of the fodder system, and at last, it seems to be particularly adapted to each farm, according to its current farming system. In the regions investigated, the adaptations of livestock farm may be difficult in the future, because the three kinds of the conditions and constraints present simultaneously important uncertainties or changes.
Agricultural abandonment reflects a post war trend in western Europe of rural depopulation to which isolated and poorer areas are most vulnerable. The commercialisation of agriculture, through technological developments, and the influence of Common Agricultural Policy have increased productivity and focused agricultural activity on more fertile and accessible land thus transforming traditional approaches to farming. In many areas this has lead to a decline in traditional labour intensive practices and marginal agricultural land is being abandoned. The problems that these trends create are particularly marked in mountain areas. The social and economic impacts of these changes have been well documented. However, the implications for environmental policy are less well recognised. This paper reviews the literature on abandonment and gives a comparative analysis of European mountain case studies to assess the environmental impacts of land abandonment and decline in traditional farming practices. It finds abandonment is widespread and that, while the influence of environmental changes is unpredictable due to environmental, agricultural and socio-economic contextual factors, abandonment generally has an undesirable effect on the environmental parameters examined. The application of agri-environment policy measures in relation to abandonment is discussed and suggestions for future policy are proposed.
Land-use changes affecting Mediterranean mountains represent the intensification of use in valley bottoms, accompanied by land-use conflicts, and a generalized abandonment of the hillslopes, which in the past were perfectly integrated in the system of land management. Farmland abandonment, reforestation, diminution of the livestock pressure and substitution of cereal crops by meadows are the most outstanding features of the recent land-use changes. The question is whether the new spatial organisation is in accordance with a longterm policy of sustainable development in mountain areas. The results obtained confirm that farmland abandonment on steep slopes — and the resulting colonization of old fields by a dense shrub cover — and afforestation contribute to control both soil erosion and surface runoff. As a result some of the most important rivers and alluvial fans have recently stabilized their sedimentary structures.
Europe’s mountains cover nearly half of the continent’s area and are home to one fifth of the European population. Mountain
areas are hotspots of biodiversity and agriculture has played a multifunctional role in defining and sustaining mountain biodiversity.
Ongoing trends of agricultural decline are having negative impacts on mountain biodiversity. This paper presents results from
an interdisciplinary European research project, BioScene, which investigated the relationship between agriculture and biodiversity
in six mountain study areas across Europe to provide recommendations for reconciling biodiversity conservation with social
and economic activities through an integrated rural development strategy. BioScene used scenario analysis and stakeholder
participation as tools for structuring the analysis of alternative mountain futures. Three main BioScene scenarios were evaluated:
Business as Usual (BaU), Agricultural Liberalisation (Lib), Managed Change for Biodiversity (MCB). BioScene brought together
ecologists, economists, sociologists and rural geographers, to carry out interdisciplinary analysis of the scenarios: identifying
key drivers of change, assessing the biodiversity consequences and evaluating cost-effectiveness. BioScene used a sustainability
assessment to integrate the research outputs across natural and social science disciplines to assess the broader sustainability
of the scenarios in terms of biodiversity, natural resources, rural development, social development, economic development
and institutional capacity. The sustainability assessment showed that the MCB scenario was potentially the most sustainable
of the three BioScene scenarios. Through the reconciliation of potentially conflicting objectives, such as conservation, economic
development and human livelihoods, and with a strong participatory planning approach, the MCB scenario could represent an
alternative approach to BaU for sustainable rural development in Europe’s mountains. BioScene confirms the necessity for natural
and social scientists to work together to seek solutions to environmental problems. Interdisciplinary research can assist
with the definition of integrated strategies with the potential to reconcile the ecological, social and economic parameters
that determine a sustainable future for European mountain areas.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, much attention was paid by British agricultural geographers to the restructuring of the farm sector under pressures of national, European and global change. The need to adopt a perspective capable of looking beyond the farm gate inspired the introduction of modified political economy approaches into agricultural research. One important cornerstone of the empirical application of this thesis was the concept of the ‘farm adjustment strategy’. This attempted to map out the responses, especially those of survival, made by farm family businesses to rapidly changing agrarian conditions. Subsequently, the farm adjustment strategy became remarkable for its popularity as a way to organise research into agricultural change in developed market economies. Following a retreat in the 1990s, there has been something of a recent revival in the use of the term ‘strategy’ relating to agricultural adjustment. Revisiting this concept is therefore timely. Using empirical evidence from studies of farming change in the Welsh Marches, this paper examines two issues. First, it makes a critical re-examination of the concept to resolve differences with interpretation linked to theoretical perspectives so that future misuse can be minimised. Second, an attempt is made to assess the relevance of defined elements of farm adjustment strategies to analyses of farm business change. In so doing, there is an attempt to recover our knowledge of agrarian restructuring and to help situate newly encultured investigations into the likely survival of family labour-based forms of production.
Research studies aimed at integrating socio-economic and geo-bio-physical factors are increasingly being used in order to improve our understanding of the causes and effects of land-use change and to support sustainable landscape development. In line with such approaches, the study reported in this paper addresses land-use change and its drivers in the peripheral area of the Pyrenees National Park (PNP), France. The focus is land-use change on private farmland currently utilised by the farmers. The method relies on a Geographic Information System (GIS), including a digital terrain model, a digital cadastre map and a farm survey addressing current and past land use. For every parcel of land, data on current land-use practices and land-use histories since 1950 were collected during interviews with the farmers. An increase in land-use intensity occurred on some of the parcels in the late 1980s and 1990s, in contrast with the global processes of abandonment or extensification since the early 1960s. This intensification process appears to be related not only to the application of agri-environmental policies but also to specific local factors, in particular to the building of an access road to the highest part of the village. The respective roles of bio-physical factors (slope and elevation) and farm socio-economic factors (farmland spatial pattern, land-tenure system) on land-use change at parcel level have also been investigated. The impact of slope and elevation on land-use type appears overall to have been greater in 2003 than in 1950. However, these factors impact differently according to the types of landscape unit: they are not determining factors in the units remote from the village, but they do have an important role in the units close to the village. The distances of the parcels from the farmstead and their access facilities appear to be the two major farm-related factors in the local context. These results confirm the important role of land-management units’ spatial arrangement in land-use dynamics and landscape change, as has already been found in other regions. They are seen as a valuable addition to studies aimed at supporting sustainable management of traditional mountain landscapes for multifunctional purposes.
According to the “Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations” (FAO), animal genetic resources available throughout the world are in a dramatic state of decline. This results in the disappearance of a substantial number of local animal populations, and the consequent loss of their ability to adapt genetically to their local environments.A basic aim of conservation biology is to maintain genetic variability. This study characterizes and analyzes the genetic structure of a limited rare population, a local beef cattle breed from the Catalonian Pyrenees (Spain), Bruna dels Pirineus.Five hundred and forty-three individuals were analyzed for five polymorphic genetic loci. Animals were sorted according to two criteria: Region level (7 subpopulations) and Nucleus of Origin level (9 sub-populations). The genetic structures and relationships among these subpopulations are analyzed and principal migratory paths and rough estimates of inbreeding among the subpopulations are discussed. The migratory trend from the northwest (Pyrenean mountain areas) to the southeast (pre-Pyrenean areas) is confirmed.This breed exhibits genetic uniformity. The average genetic differentiation among subpopulations (Nucleus of Origin) was 1.6% (FST=0.016; P<0.001). The effective number of individuals exchanged between subpopulations (Nuclei) per generation (gene flow) is estimated to be 12.1.We propose the animals from Pyrenean mountain areas to be the nucleus of conservation and maintenance of genetic variability for this breed. This information could be integrated into the FAO Global Data Bank on Domestic Animal Diversity.
Natural reforestation reflects a decline in traditional agricultural practices. In the last decades, natural forest re-growth has replaced much of the grasslands in the Swiss mountains. This is an area where traditional cultivation has preserved unique landscapes and habitats of high ecological value. We investigated the patterns and determinants of natural reforestation of sub-alpine grasslands at the sub-parcel level using raster cells as the units of the analysis, and at the municipality-level. The study encompassed four municipalities in the Swiss Alps. Land-use data were derived from aerial photographs taken between the 1950s and 2000. We derived the research design for fieldwork (interviews in this study) from spatial statistical models (classification trees in this study). This method is known as the “finding answers in the errors” approach. This allowed us to relate the behaviour of landowners and operators to changes in land-use/land-cover types, which is one of the main challenges in land-use/land-cover change research.Three of four classification trees accurately described the locations where natural reforestation occurred, which was mostly on steep and north-facing slopes. However, additional information from interviews was necessary to understand the patterns and determinants of reforestation. Interviews revealed that policy factors (e.g. delayed land consolidations) enhanced forest re-growth. Some sites remained under cultivation despite model predictions of reforestation. Socio-economic factors, not incorporated into the models, explained these discrepancies. These factors included the opportunity costs of farm labour (e.g. aged farmers retaining traditional practices), a conversion to low-cost cultivation practices (e.g. deer and horse pasturing), agri-environmental requirements (e.g. land required to avoid exceeding the prescribed number of livestock per hectare) or other benefits (e.g. hobby farming). Many farms were abandoned during the 50-year study period. The remaining farms often increased in size, whereas farm labour remained stable or decreased. Farm labour costs increased faster than incomes, leading to undergrazing and the cessation of tree and shrub clearance. Although our discussion references specific case study areas, our methods are applicable to the study of other areas undergoing land-use change.
We characterised the livestock-farming management strategies of multiple-job holders and identified which variables contributed most to the differentiation of these strategies. We hypothesised that they would mainly be differentiated by the contribution of the farming income to the total household income and the availability of the household members for farming. The multiple-job holding livestock-farmer's motivations, decisions and actions about both multiple-job holding and livestock farming were obtained in semi-directed interviews of 35 sheep farmers who held multiple jobs, on farm and off farm. They were synthesised into six variables characterising the diversity of the livestock-farming objectives and management guidelines. Thanks to a multiple factorial analysis, we showed that the diversity of the sheep-farming management strategies of multiple-job holders was better explained by two factors 'level of motivation of the farmer to get high technical results' and 'more personal fulfilling v. the family business conception of farming', than the factors we hypothesised. Within our sample, the performances ranged from 0.7 to 1.4 weaned lambs per ewe per year. Six sheep-farming management strategies were identified. They illustrated the importance of the level of production objectives and of farming income expectation, which were found to be independent, in explaining diversity. No direct relationship between farm work organisation and sheep-farming management strategy was identified. Explaining the diversity of the livestock-farming management strategies of multiple-job holders appears to require that all the benefits expected from farming and their hierarchy be identified before analysing how they are translated into production objectives and management guidelines.
In the last few decades, significant changes in livestock farming systems and land use were observed in European mountain areas with large implications for the sustainability of grazing agro-ecosystems. System dynamic studies become essential to understand these changes, identify the drivers involved and trying to anticipate what might happen in the future. The objectives of this study were as follows: (i) to analyse the main recent changes that occurred in mountain cattle farming in the Spanish Pyrenees; (ii) to typify diverse trajectories of evolution of these systems; and (iii) to establish drivers of change that might help understand the evolution of mountain agriculture. A constant sample of mountain cattle farms was analysed for the period 1990 to 2004. In total, 30% of farms have disappeared during this time interval. For the remaining farms, the most important general changes observed were as follows: increment of size; change of productive orientation from mixed beef-dairy to pure beef production; extensification of grazing management; reduction of family labour and increase of pluriactivity; reduction of unitary variable costs; and increase of labour productivity. After the elimination of common temporal effects between dates, multivariate techniques allowed for the identification of three patterns and six specific trajectories of evolution that are profiled in the text. Relationships between the patterns of evolution and other variables referring the farm, the household and the socio-economic environment were identified as drivers of change: (i) the specific location of the farm in relation to the capital village of the municipality and the evolution other sectors of the economy, in particular tourism; (ii) the size of the family labour, presence of successors and degree of dynamism of the farmer; and (iii) the initial orientation of production.
The structure and typology of beef cattle farms from three autochthonous Spanish breeds (Avilena-Negra Iberica, Morucha and Retinta) located in "dehesa" areas have been characterised from a survey including 130 farms. The questionnaire provided information on the structure of the farms, feeding practices, reproductive and sanitary management, production and commercialisation of the product. Descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis (multiple correspondences analysis and cluster analysis) were used to understand the relationships between variables and to establish farm typologies. We have found that the farms are large (an average of 125 cows and 548 ha), with an average stocking rate of 0.4 livestock unit/ha of agricultural area. Most of the farms are family managed, but with an important presence of external employees. Feeding depends largely on grazing, with seasonal supplementation. The presence of other livestock species, such horses, sheep and swine is frequent. The typology of the farms has been established on the basis of (1) farm size, (2) productivity of labour, (3) degree of specialisation, and (4) degree of extensification. Three groups of farms have been differentiated. The first group has followed a strategy of intensification of the system and includes the smallest farms. The second group is constituted by farms of intermediate size, very specialised in beef production. The third group includes large farms that have followed a strategy of extensification, complementing farm incomes by the exploitation of other livestock species. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Demonstrates that the contradictory combination of industrial mass production and peasant agrarian structure led to a specific modernization policy depending on-government-induced market regulation. The main aim was the full and stable integration of peasant family farms into an industrial division of labour. Such integration depended on far-reaching control and reduction of family labour, and resulted in a devaluation of traditional knowledge, the destruction of peasant identity and the social isolation of the farming community. These developments are analyzed with the help of regulation theory and the concept of "Fordism'. Alternative strategies for the social and cultural reproduction of peasant forms of production depend on the success of efforts made to create co-operative production principles and self-sustaining marketing activities. -from Author
This paper contributes to the theoretical debates which seek to explain economic restructuring and social recomposition in rural areas. There has been a recent movement towards applying a supposed transition from Fordism to post-Fordism to rural change, but the paper urges caution in this respect, arguing that the regulationist literature requires sensitive handling if it is to fulfil its potential as a framework for conceptualizing rural change. Emphasis is therefore given to the intermediate concepts of 'mode of regulation' and 'societalization' as starting points for understanding contemporary rural life, and these concepts are grounded spatially with reference to Harvey's notion of structured coherence. Discussion of these concepts is then linked to a series of illustrations of the changing structured coherences discernible in rural Britain. In particular the paper emphasizes the breakdown of previously localized coherence and the replacement by more fragmented coherence reflecting different forms of commodification occurring in rural areas. The use of this conceptual framework has important implications for continuing research in rural studies.
Organic production is a growing sector throughout Europe. This is also the case in Catalonia. However, some structural shortcomings are detected which might pose a threat to the future evolution of this production system. One of these weaknesses comes from the imbalance situation generated by the fact that the number of livestock farms is certainly larger than the number of agricultural operations which produce feed for animals. In order to consider the consequences of this disproportion and the influence on it of the organic subsidies in Catalonia, we have conducted a set of structured interviews to organic farmers. It has been observed that organic subsidies often work as an income complement to farmers located at marginal areas, whereas they are less effective in converting to organic production farmers of more productive regions and forms of farming. Finally, it should be highlighted the high level of specialisation showed by organic farms, as well as the low degree of integration between livestock and agricultural operations.
The consequences of tourist growth on extensive livestock farming were studied in a valley in the Spanish Central Pyrenees (Upper Esera), characterized by important growth in tourist activity during the last 3 decades. The municipalities with the greatest tourist development experienced the biggest drop in livestock farming (abandonment of cultivated land, decrease in livestock population and farms) because of the competition of tourism for labor and fertile land, which are essential to the maintenance of extensive livestock farming. Low use of pasture resources leads to their progressive loss, owing to the advance of plant succession (substitution of pastures by shrubs), decreasing landscape diversity, and increased fire hazard and soil erosion. We conclude that the current model of tourist development in the Spanish Pyrenees represents serious problems in terms of sustainable development.
Little is known about farm-based accommodation as a purposive restructuring strategy amongst family farm businesses. This paper presents the findings of a survey of 212 farm businesses operating accommodation ventures in three English counties (Dorset, Lincolnshire and Staffordshire). A previously devised conceptual framework, located within a broad political economy approach to capitalist agriculture, is employed to logically present empirical findings. The primary focus is upon the internal farm business environment. Characteristics of family businesses are highlighted to illustrate ways in which accommodation is used as an adjustment strategy. Financial reasons are found to represent the main driving force behind the initiation of accommodation enterprises in all areas. This appears to be part of an ‘accumulation strategy’ on larger farms, but a ‘survival strategy’ on smaller farms. The way in which the internal environment of family farm businesses interacts with agents in the external environment is then explored. Outside organisations are found to be increasing their involvement with accommodation, adding another dimension to the penetration of agriculture by private and public capitals. Currently, this operates at a low level, although further specific examination of the external environment is required.
Forty-six dehesa sheep farms of Extremadura (SW Spain) were analyzed on the basis of previously determined technical and economic indicators. A principal component analysis gave five principal components – related to intensification, profitability, and livestock mix – that characterized the farms. Using multivariate techniques based on these factors, a farm typology was established with six categories—three of sheep alone at different levels of intensification, and three of sheep in combination with beef cattle or Iberian pig. This typology enabled homogeneous groups of farms to be considered for possible administrative actions relating to their optimal dimensions and stocking rates.
Recent attempts to identify the distinctive characteristics of family relations associated with agricultural production have tended to underestimate the dynamic processes which operate between industrial and finance capital and the farm family located at the point of production. Much of this recent research also tends to underplay the role of internal family processes in bringing about changes or assumes rational forms of behaviour aligned to macro-economic forces. This paper explores some of the relationships which exist in the 1980s between the changing political and economic environment associated with agricultural production and the individual responses and adaptations farm families are making with reference to evidence gathered from the county of Dorset, England. Adaptations in three particular areas (farm occupancy, changes in business organisation, and family labour and continuity) are explored, identifying the ways in which strategies allow for the survival of family farm businesses in an increasingly unstable market and political situation.
In France, faced with an increasing demand, organic farming is expanding out of its hitherto marginal status, with a conversion rate reaching 20% per year. However, organic meat supply remains globally insufficient. Conversion to organic farming has two main consequences: a decrease in productivity per hectare and a greater economic incentive to produce cereals. In a simulation study the consequences of transition of a cattle suckle and a sheep suckle system to organic farming was studied. Cattle production is characterised by a broad diversity of products and by the importance of the European subsidy system. In organic farming, for a given area, the optimal balance shows fewer cows with fattened products and larger areas for cereals; gross margins increasing significantly. Sheep production is characterised by the broad diversity of its reproductive systems and by the importance of concentrates for feeding. After conversion, maintenance of previous earnings, for a given area, requires a rise in selling prices of between €0.76 and €1.5/kg carcass.
The ‘Sierra de Guara’ Natural Park (81,491 ha, Huesca, Spain) is a protected Mediterranean mountain area dominated by shrub and forest pastures. Traditional agriculture, mainly extensive grazing systems, has decreased in the last decades; concurrently, invasion of shrub vegetation, landscape changes and higher risk of forest fires have been observed.A study, which started in 2000, was carried out with two broad objectives: at the farm level, to analyse the farming systems and evaluate management strategies; at the regional level, to give useful information to conservation authorities for better decision-making.An integrated approach with different spatial scales and methods of analysis was used. First, a survey covering all farms that utilized the Park was carried out and livestock farming systems were characterized in terms of grazing management, technical and socio-economic factors. Second, six representative areas were selected to evaluate, depending on livestock utilization, grass and shrub vegetation dynamics (biomass, green/dead ratio). Third, vegetation and livestock data were analysed using a Geographic Information System to identify constraining factors and areas of intervention. Key imbalances were identified that can threaten the sustainability of the Park: low continuity of farming families; intensification of the management system; degradation of grazing resources; and concentration of grazing areas. A number of management recommendations are raised.
Andalusia is the second goat milk-producing region in Europe and therefore pastoral goat systems are important. In order to maintain these types of systems it is necessary to know precisely how they work and what actions can be taken to improve them. In this study the authors have set out the following objectives: (i) to characterize and analyze the viability of pastoral dairy goat systems in Andalusia, (ii) to use the results of this characterization and analysis to suggest improvements to these systems and (iii) to evaluate the suitability of the FAO-CIHEAM set of indicators for dairy goat systems linked to grazing. After carrying out a multivariate analysis using data collected in 18 farms during 2006, results point to 69.3% of variance, which is explained by two principal components (PC). The first includes Number of goats present, Milk yield per goat per year, Proportion of milk produced in autumn, Concentrate consumed per goat per year and Total labor per 100 goats. The second has Total area per goat, Scrubland area per goat and Forage consumed per goat per year. Based on these two principal components, farms have been classified into three groups, each of them using different strategies to maintain economic viability. The FAO-CIHEAM set of indicators for sheep and goat production systems is valid when analyzing pastoral dairy goat systems in Andalusia. However, some indicators need to be adjusted, particularly those pertaining to certain technical and economic aspects of grazing areas and seasonal variations.