Positive deviant strategies implemented by organic multi-species livestock farms in Europe

Summary

Transitions to more sustainable livestock production systems are increasingly being considered and scientists suggest to move towards diversified farming systems due to their potential environmental and economic benefits, especially in the organic sector. However, empirical knowledge of multi-species livestock farms, i.e. farms keeping two or more animal species, is lacking.
Our objectives were to identify European organic multi-species livestock farms that outperform their peers despite having the same resources and constraints, and characterize their distinctive management principles.
We conducted surveys on 102 farms in seven European countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, and we kept 86 farms from the initial sample that had complete data. These farms included 19 different combinations of large ruminants, small ruminants, large and small ruminants, and large ruminants and monogastrics. We implemented a positive deviance approach based on four indicators: land productivity, nitrogen input dependence, nitrogen balance and satisfaction regarding income.
Six structurally diverse positive deviant farms were identified with multiple types of livestock combinations represented, and farmland area ranging from 25.3 to 199.3 ha, herd size from 26 to 126.3 livestock units (LU) and total workforce size from 2 to 5 annual worker units (AWU). Most of these farms had high overall autonomy for feed (85-97% against a mean of 75% for the whole sample) by fostering diversity of pastures, crops and livestock and promoting interactions among farm activities in ways (e.g. matter flows, co-grazing, crop rotations including pastures, etc.) that benefited the whole system. Diversity of production activities allowed four out of the six farmers to develop direct selling which was well suited to support their farming strategies oriented towards high autonomy for feed. Diversity was also found besides agricultural production through e.g. agritourism. Some farmers, especially in farms with co-farmers, had found organizational models suited to control their workload and to take free days throughout the year by efficiently planning, distributing, and sharing tasks. This strategy allowed them to save time for networking with other farmers to access to information, support, and equipment.
We conducted the first integrated study on European organic multi-species livestock farms and identified key management principles implemented on positive deviant farms. These principles will inform farmers running multi-species livestock farms or transitioning to this model.