Studying mixed livestock farming systems in Languedoc Roussillon: connecting innovations, adapting capacities and territory embeddedness.

Summary

Considering the several controversies surrounding animal farming, a new way for studying, designing and supporting agricultural holdings becomes necessary. Organic/extensive mixed livestock systems appear as diversified, innovative and adaptive models in a context of farms specialization and expansion. Yet, diversity is often put forward as an essential component for more sustainable practices, based on the functional agrobiodiversity. Studying MLS with a systemic approach has never been done before the start of the European project Mix Enable, because of the inherent complexity of these systems. We realized 14 surveys on the Languedoc Roussillon territory and those farms appear to be diverse in terms of structure, environment and practices. We combine several approach in order to create a multi-level analysis framework allowing considering the principal components around the surveyed farms. This framework start from the smallest level (the farm structure) to the biggest one (graphic representation of territory interactions). We made a modelling of the systems and classified them in three types. MLS follow three different economic and functioning strategies. The typology coupled with the creation of the territory “granges” allow to highlight the coexistence between different farming strategies in the same territory and their diverse contributions potentially complementary to the agroecological transition.