Agroecological levers to improve sustainability of dairy sheep farms

International audience

إنجليزي. Livestock farming is an essential activity in many rural areas, mainly in the less-favoured areas. Environmentalissues, climate change and economic context weaken the farms’ performances and sustainability. Agroecology can provide a framework to ensure the sustainability of the livestock farming systems. Building self-sufficiency of animal feed is a privileged way to star this transition. In the low favoured area it’s not so easy to achieve self-sufficiency but farmers experiment different levers for action to improve farm adaptability. In such a context, over the past few years, researchers, farmers, advisors have built together projects to identify and to assess innovative practices for sustainable land use, and the use of diversity resources. The present study is based on around 50-dairy-sheep-farms in two regions in southern France where farmers produce ewe milk for PDO cheeses. We have collected (1) data from farmers‘ interviews about practices, (2) agronomic and economic data. We have identified four patterns describing the management of self-sufficiency. These patterns match with four agroecological levers improving sustainability: (1) using natural resources limiting chemical input; (2) managing feed self-sufficiency producing the whole animals’ feed; (3) reducing tillage using pesticides; (4) applying conservation farming increasing plant diversity. Finally to assess practices of farmers we have built a set of indicators concerning three main environmental stakes: soil preservation, no renewable resources use, and cultivated biodiversity. We mobilized these indicators to describe each pattern with its different trade-offs. To improve the self-sufficiency of livestock farming systems, farmers must to redefine the objectives of animal production. This study is an important milestone for dairy sheep production insight to improve the agroecological management of farms. These results should be used to produce tools for agroecological transition.