Petit T.1, Couvreur S.1 and Martel G.2
1Ecole Supérieure d’Agriculture d’Angers (ESA), Unité de Recherche sur les Systèmes d’Elevage (URSE), 55 Rue Rabelais, 49007 Angers, France, 2INRA, SAD-Paysage, 65, rue de Saint Brieuc, 35000 Rennes, France; t.petit@groupe-esa.com
Abstract
French agriculture has been facing a renewal of interest for grassland since the nineties due to their multiple functions. Nevertheless, grasslands have diminished in French cattle territories as a result of agricultural intensification and homogenization. However in some local areas a maintenance or increase of grassland has been observed during the last decades. By questioning farmers in one of those areas (Brittany, France), we aimed to identify and analyze the changes of farming systems leading to grassland maintenance in the long term. The qualitative surveys were led on the whole farmer career to collect data enabling the analysis of: (1) the farm strategy pathway and (2) the changes in grassland use to reach the strategy. The results show 6 different strategy pathways related to two axes: (1) specialization vs diversification and (2) intensification vs agro-ecological management. The focus on the grassland use showed 4 kinds of grassland pathways related to 6 aggregated indicators of grassland roles: the quantitative place of grassland in the farming system, its zootechnical role, the flexibility and security it brings, the agronomic and environmental roles. Our work shows that grassland maintenance is mainly supported by the feeding roles of grassland and occurred in various strategy pathways and partially determined by the strategy pathway. Our work is important to imagine new ways to help the grassland maintenance on farm according to the farmer’s strategy and the role grassland can play to reach it.
Keywords: grassland, farming system, pathways
Introduction
In France, grassland areas have decreased since 1960 due to specialization and intensification of cattle production. However, research programs have shown the benefits of grasslands use (natural/permanent/
temporary) such as: (1) better incomes at farm scale or territory scale; (2) environmental; (3) and social benefits (Huyghe et al., 2014). In spite of public policies and technical tools promoting grassland use, grassland areas are still decreasing, mainly in plain regions where cattle production is dominant.
Nevertheless a recent study led on the two last French agricultural census datasets (2000 and 2010) highlighted that local dynamics of grassland maintenance exist over the period among the general decrease of grassland areas (Couvreur et al., 2016). Knowledge about how grasslands maintained at farm scale in this region could help stakeholders in developing technical tools and advice for grassland development. For this purpose we aimed at identifying and analysing the changes of farming systems that lead to grassland maintenance in the long term. Our hypothesis was that maintenance of grassland is linked to the farm strategy pathway and the roles grasslands play for the forage system and have for agronomical and environmental benefits.
Materials and methods
The study took place in the nearby area of Rennes (Brittany, France). In 2015, we studied 12 dairy and/or beef cattle farms selected to be representative of the diversity of farming systems in the area according to the productions and the farms’ size. The farmers had to have been settled before year 2000. We collected the data by one-to-one survey performed twice with the farmers knew the system best and its historical evolution. The data were collected, from the time of settling.
The first interview dealt with the structural evolution of the farming system (utilized agricultural area (UAA), work force, production facilities) and dimensions of the different crop and animal productions (production volume, number of animals, crops rotations). Singular events like cessation, creation or expansion of a production workshop, major changes in the crop and forage systems management, structural evolution made possible the drawing of farm strategy pathways. Each farm is characterized by stability periods and changes. A stability period represents a time period while there is no major change in the production strategy.
The second interview focused on grassland management during each stability period by questioning about the type of grasslands, type of forage, grass forages quality and quantity, grazing management and crops rotations including grassland. Then we characterized the grassland place within each period of the strategy. Grassland place was assessed according to 6 aggregated indicators judging its potential roles: (1) quantitative place of grassland in the system (QPG); (2) zootechnical role; (3) forage system security; (4) forage system flexibility; (5) agronomic services and (6) environmental services. Each indicator corresponds to the sum of weighted criteria. A criterion results from the coding of one variable (e.g.: part of grassland in UAA, percentage of sock based on grassland, number of type of grassland storage, number of different type of grassland...). The coding and the weight for each criterion have been established regarding to the literature (Baumont et al., 2009; Delaby and Peyraud, 2009; Delagarde et al., 2001). Then by analyzing the evolution of those indicators, we split farms into grassland pathway groups.
Finally we analysed the relation between farm strategy pathway and grassland pathway to identify the main factors of maintenance of grassland at farm scale.
Results
We highlighted 7 strategy pathways for the 12 dairy farms surveyed according to two dimensions: (1) specialization vs diversification and (2) intensification vs agro ecological management. The pathways are: (1) organic specialization (n=1); (2) sustainable specialization (n=2); (3) organic diversification (n=1); (4) intensive specialization in dairy or beef cattle production (n=3); (5) diversification with a monogastric workshop (n=2); (6) diversification with a ruminant workshop (n=2); (7) diversification with cheese making (n=1).
We highlighted 4 types of grassland pathways regarding to the 6 indicators (Figure 1). For 3 farms, all the indicators decrease and constitute G1 group. QPG and security increased in 9 farms (G2 and G3). G2 group (n=1) differed from G3 group (n=8) in higher agronomical and environmental roles and lower flexibility and zootechnical roles. G3 group can be divided in 2 sub-groups corresponding to the behavior of the pathways: regular pathways maintaining the same direction (G3_1, n=6) and broken pathways indicating a brutal change in the grassland use (G3_2, n=2).
When comparing grassland and strategy pathways, we observed that grassland roles were not explained by the farmer’s strategy. For example G1 group gathers 3 different types of strategy pathways and G3 group gathers 7 different types. Nevertheless, when grassland roles increase (G3 group), the way they increase (efficiency, substitution, reconception) seemed related to the farm strategy pathway. Thus the sustainable specialization pathways are characterized by two separate steps: strong increase of QPG and security followed by an increase of flexibility and zootechnical roles. The two farms with a strategy pathway going to organic farming also had similar grassland pathway with linear increase of QPG, security, flexibility and zootechnical roles of grassland. Finally, diversification with a monogastric workshop strategy pathway is mainly characterized by a steady increase of the flexibility and zootechnical roles.
Discussion
Our work shows that, in the studied population, room for manoeuvre was mobilized to increase grassland use at the farm scale independently from farm strategies. As they were mainly focused on the zootechnical and forage system flexibility, the grassland roles for feeding management seem to be the main factor of maintenance. This is certainly linked to the fact that ruminant production was the major farm workshop.
Whatever the starting point, grassland pathways are mainly evolving toward an increase in the place of grassland in the farming systems, partially linked to the farm strategies. From that statement, we can make the hypothesis that there are other factors than farm strategy that affect the design of the forage system and contribute to the maintenance of grassland at the farm scale. One of these factors can be the socio-economic context (stakeholders’ territory, agro-food production chain) which influences farmers’ points of view about grassland use (Geels and Schot, 2007; Gibon, 2005). An issue for the future is to characterize the impact of the socio-economic context on grassland use, in order to enhance its use at the farm scale. For that purpose a second part of the study will focus on the influence of networks (professional or not) on farmer practices.
References
Couvreur, S., Defois, J., Petit, T., Ben Arfa, N. (2016) Local spatio-temporal dynamics of grassland maintenance between 2000 and 2010 in French cattle areas. Submitted manuscript to EGF symposium.
Baumont, R., Aufrère, J. and Meschy, F. (2009) Feeding value of the forages : effects of cultivation, harvesting and conservation practices. Fourrages 198, 153-173.
Delaby, L., and Peyraud, J.L. (2009) Valoriser les fourrages de l’exploitation pour produire du lait. Fourrages 198, 191-210.
Delagarde, R., Prache, S., D’Hour, P. and Petit, M. (2001) Ingestion de l’herbe par les ruminants au pâturage. Fourrages 166, 189-212.
Geels, F.W. and Schot, J. (2007) Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways. Research Policy 36(3), 399-417.
Gibon, A. (2005) Managing grassland for production, the environment and the landscape. Challenges at the farm and the landscape level. Livestock Production Science 96(1), 11-31.
Huyghe, C., de Vliegher, A., van Gils, B., and Peeters, A. (2014) Grasslands and Herbivore Production in Europe and Effects of Common Policies (Editions Quae). Versailles, France..0
Productive strategy Groups regarding place of
grassland pathway
Figure 1. Place of grassland in the various productive strategy pathway of the farming system projected on two axes (A) G1 and G2 groups;
(B) G3_1 and G3_2 groups. G1: decreasing place of grasslands pathway for all indicators; G2: increasing quantitative place of grassland in the system (QPG), security, agronomical and environmental roles of grasslands; G3_1: increasing QPG, security, flexibility and zootechnical roles of grasslands; G3_2: increasing QPG, security, flexibility and zootechnical roles of grasslands with brutal changes in grassland use. Axis 1: mainly positively related to QPG and security role and secondary to flexibility of the forage system, zootechnical, environmental and agronomical roles.
Axis 2: opposes at the upper part agronomical and environmental roles and on the opposite flexibility and zootechnical roles.