Analysing farmer biomass, product, labour and land exchanges in a range of European landscapes

Actes en cours

International audience

Inglés. Bucking the trend of specialisation, a few pioneering farmers have reintegrated livestock onto crop farms. These systems have been neglected by research to date. We identified French farmers’ motivations for reintegrating livestock into specialised crop farms and crop-producing regions. Following innovation-tracking principles, we interviewed 18 crop farmers having reintegrated livestock in various systems in two regions dominated by crop farming. The semi-directed interviews focused on farmers’ motivations for reintegrating livestock and were completed by farmers’ ranking of 10/36 cards representing their main agronomic, economic, social and environmental motivations for crop-livestock farming. Seven categories of motivations for reintegrating livestock emerged from inductive content analysis: following personal ethical and moral values, increasing and stabilising income, promoting ecosystem services, increasing self-sufficiency and traceability, connecting to the local community, decreasing pollution and keeping the landscape open. Agricultural motivations, particularly related to soil quality, dominated both discourse analysis and motivation card rankings. Economic and social motivations were closely ranked, with income stability and social connections being primary drivers. Environmental motivation cards were less selected. This study is the first to provide a ranked summary of crop farmers’ motivations for reintegrating livestock. Understanding this diversity is an initial step in supporting the development of this practice.