Farm-scale models built with farmers converting and converted to organic farming

Summary

Intensive livestock farming has recently induced several cases threatening food security. Therefore, redesigning sustainable livestock farming systems is a major challenge for agricultural science. Specifically, farm-scale models that truly integrate different subsystems, viewpoints and time scales are needed. Up to now, however, no modelling approach has been able to meet these requirements. In previous work, we have designed a participatory modelling method based on causal mapping to help farmer groups redesign their livestock farming systems. Two causal maps have been built with two neighbouring groups of dairy farmers converting and converted to organic farming. It was the first time that consistent wholes had been made of elements cited by farmers faced with a redesign process. This article describes the content of the causal maps, with a focus on the current issue of integrating multiple subsystems, viewpoints and time scales within the same farm-scale model. We found that the maps included items at the whole farm scale and from a variety of disciplinary viewpoints and time scales. This finding indicates that these characteristics are useful in modelling approaches for redesigning farming systems. In addition, both maps closely linked herd operations to the forage system in a cluster centered on the feeding–health–production complex. This result suggests that the feeding–health–production complex requires particular attention for organic conversion of dairy farms. Lastly, novel relations were identified in the maps that linked work organisation and farm configuration to reproductive performance. This finding shows that analysing work organisation helps understanding how biotechnical performance evolves in a farming system.