How to fear farming system sustainability ?
Application to organic cattle meat production 

P. Stassart, D. Stilmant and D. Jamar

Abstract - Following different crises, involving agricultural systems, either in terms of environmental pressure or of food quality and safety, an increasing need for farming system sustainability evaluation has been highlighted. How, from the research point of view, to evaluate such sustainability? What is the methodology to mobilise?
First approaches have developed sustainability indicators to quantify the fluxes existing between the farming systems and their economical, environmental or social surroundings. However, these indicators are difficult to aggregate: each farming system is unique, so it is difficult to define reference values to reach, whatever the farm type. Such indicators are of value when they allow farmers to become aware of the impact of their practices and of the improvement that could be expected following their modification.
An alternative, to articulate system externalities with farmer practices and schemes, is to shift from eco-centred research posture, wanting to model systems diversity and complexity, to holistic approach with the mobilisation of ‘research-intervention’ methodology. In such posture, the researcher implies themselves in the collective action. However the key issue is the reflexivity between these research approaches: research intervention allows to identify possible solutions to be validated in eco- or techno-centred approaches. Once validated these solutions, shared with the actors, are easily accepted.

The context
Following different crises, involving more or less directly agricultural systems, either in terms of environmental pressure (water quality degradation, greenhouse gazes emission, …) or of food quality and safety (hormone use, BSE, …), an increasing need for farming system sustainability evaluation has been highlighted.
The majority of the approaches performed till now focus on a systemic  approach with the development of indicators to characterize the sustainability of farming systems in the three functions they have to meet :
(i)	the economic function of production (economic performance and efficiency, system transferability,…);
(ii)	the ecological function (natural resources preservation and improvement, … );
(iii)	the social function (food production in quantity and quality, equity, participation to rural and local development, …).
So these indicators characterize farming system externalities, either positive or negative, and fluxes with their economical, ecological and social surroundings.
However, such indicators are difficult to handle and to aggregate: each farming system is unique, so it is hard to define critical or reference values to reach absolutely, whatever the farm type. Such indicator sets show their full value when they allow the farmer to become aware of the impact of practices (fertilizing, feeding, … strategies) and of the improvement that could be expected following their modification (Stilmant et al. 2004).

How to take into account farmer practices, projects and social interactions ?
Most of these approaches focus on long term evolution while the farmer wants to improve the performance, the survival of its system in respect to the economical, social and environmental uncertainties and constraints, on short and long time scales. In such a context, farming systems adaptation and transformation capacities, facing these constraints and uncertainties, could be considered as reflecting their sustainability. Moreover, the tensions existing between the objectives at short and long terms, at the individual and collective levels, explain why a simple maximization of profit or sustainability indicators sets does not allow to justify farmers decisions (Hubert 2004). In order to take into account farmer practices, projects and social interactions with the citizens or with the other agro-food chain actors it is necessary to modify our research approach (Hubert 2004).
As already underlined, in system sustainability approach, most of the team have already to shift from the classical research posture, used in natural sciences, to say from the “laboratory model” where the phenomenon to analyse is isolated in order to control all the factors of variation but the one to study (technocentricity), to the “field model”, that accept the world complexity and the interactions between its different components. The characterization, the modelling of this complexity is based on observation more than on experimentation (ecocentricity) (fig. 1). In this context the coherence of the knowledge on interactions complexity will be more important than the results objectivity per se. In order to take into account social interactions a “research-intervention” seems to be more adapted. In such approach the searcher becomes an actor of the world under analysis (holocentricity). He takes part himself to the collective action with the different actors having underlined the problematic. There is a problem, a methodology but no pre-programmed result! It is only at the end of the intervention that we can demonstrate that something new has been produced and that the impact of the intervention could be evaluated.

Fig. 1 : Research approach in relation to the dimension of the problematic to deal with

Now, these different research attitudes are not rigid, their richness is in the possible reflexivity between them. So a first step of research-intervention will allow identifying, with the involved actors, the right problem and the possible solutions to explore and to validate with an eco-centered or techno-centered approach.

Research-intervention mobilisation to explore  “how can organic farming contributes to sustainable production and consumption patterns?” 
Research intervention methodology have been applied by a multi-disciplinary research team, involving socio-economists and agronomists, to investigate “how can organic farming contributes to sustainable production and consumption patterns ?’. More especially the study focus on the main Belgian organic beef meat agro-food-chain, as beef meat sector had to face different problems, in term of sustainability, during the last ten years.
This approach has allowed to identify important tensions at the breeder level, between retailer and consumer, and within the food chain transactions. 
So breeders have to bride the gap between organic rules and agro-food chain expectations. Indeed they have to finish, less than 24 months old limousin bulls with a diet including less than 40 % of concentrates and with housed period of less than 3 months. Such challenge raises also the problem of gastro-intestinal parasites management for these bulls that have to maintain high performances during all their lifetime. To respond to agro-food chain expectations they have to play with organic rules limits. They continue to produce their limousin bulls as they used to produce their conventional Belgian Blue bulls before converting their system to organic rules, with their initial know-how, and as the transformer and the retailer continue to ask for the same lean and tender meat as the one found in the conventional chain.
To explore possible solutions to these tensions, researchers have proposed a new actor configuration (relation modification) to allow a better representation of the producers in the chain. A chain in which they injected some knowledge. So, one solution emerged from the identification of different types of consumers, more especially from intermittent consumers looking for products with more taste and flavor even if less tender. Such consumers are a potential market, aside from the traditional organic consumers, if this organic beef meat agro-food chain succeeds in its product differentiation challenge. This challenge has allowed the actors of this chain to talk about, to take into account the existing tensions and to cooperate to looking for solutions.
To explore the feasibility of such a product differentiation, the researchers changed their research approach from a ‘research-intervention’ one’s (problem and possible solutions identification) to a ‘laboratory model’ one’s.  This shift will be presented in a companion paper of Jamar et al., in the theme 7 topic 3.

Acknowledgement
These methodological approaches were funded by the second multi-annual scientific support plan for a sustainable development policy (SPSDII) - part 1: sustainable production and consumption pattern,  from the Belgian federal public planning service – Science policy.

References
Hubert, B. (2004). Pour une écologie de l’action. Savoir agir, apprendre, connaître. Editions Arguments, 430 p.

Sraïri, M. T. (2001). Déterminisme et applications de la recherché systémique pour l’étude de l’élevage laitier. Courrier de l’environnement de l’INRA 42:29-46.

Stilmant, D., Hennart, S., Decruyenaere, V., Haan, P.M., Parache, P. et Lambin, J. (2004). Voies d’évolution possibles pour les systèmes allaitants du sud-est de la Belgique face aux contraintes de la PAC. Fourrages 177:113-124.