Stakeholders’ perception on the role of extensive livestock farming in the fight against climate change

Livestock farming is currently highly questioned and is considered by society to be one of the main precursors of climate change and innumerable environmental impacts. This social concern has marked a trend in public policies in Europe, promoting strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by controlling the carbon footprint of agri-food products. However, in certain regions, the perception of the main actors in the sector about the role that livestock farming plays in this fight against climate change and how new political trends point the way toward the sustainability of agrarian systems is still uncertain. In this study, the opinions of stakeholders of the agro-livestock sector on the role that extensive livestock farming plays in the current context of the fight against climate change and the demands for public policies to facilitate the adoption of mitigation practices were examined. A participatory research process through focus groups was used in this qualitative study. Specifically, five sessions were held at the beginning of 2022; the sessions were recorded, transcribed, and anonymized for further analysis. In these sessions, projective techniques were used, such as word association and sentence completion to understand stakeholders’ perceptions of the role of extensive livestock farming in climate change. Brand mapping was conducted to determine the opinion on the profitability and GHG emissions of 10 livestock systems typical of the region and of eight quality labelling systems related to sustainability. Brainstorming was carried out to assess available practices for the adaptation of livestock farms and mitigation of climate change. Finally, there was an open debate regarding the demands for public aid for the implementation of mitigation practices. The word association technique identified concepts such as ‘Equilibrium’ in extensive livestock farming and concepts such as ‘Effects’, ‘Action’ and ‘Concern’ in climate change. For the term carbon footprint, the most mentioned concept was ‘ignorance’, and for common agricultural policy, the most mentioned term was ‘injustices’. The results of the brand mapping allowed us to determine the perception of the stakeholders regarding the profitability of the different extensive farm systems and on their GHG emissions, with the most extensive and traditional ones being perceived as the lowest emitters of gases but also the least profitable. For sustainable labels, stakeholders believed that labels contribute to profitability and lower GHG emissions. Strategies to adapt to climate change and reduce the impact of farms were focused on reforestation, grazing, and soil management, adjusting the livestock stocking rate and self-production of food on farms. The best mitigating practices proposed were the maintenance of the extensive livestock farming (4.69), improvement of accesses, livestock routes and roads (4.63), making and applying compost (4.50) and the simplified administrative procedures (5.00). In the prioritization of public aids, three categories were established based on the field of action: social/organizational measures (38 votes), economic measures (44 votes) and environmental measures (22 votes). The aid related to maintaining profitability and improving marketing, followed by aid to reduce bureaucracy and direct aid to extensive livestock farming, were identified as priorities. This study offers a detailed picture of how stakeholders in the agro-livestock sector see the role that extensive livestock farming plays in the fight against climate change. The best farm management practices and priority lines of public support that policy-makers can apply have been identified in this study and emanate directly from those who receive subsidies and make the decisions in their livestock farming to ensure their implementation more successful.

The authors would like to acknowledge the support and funding provided by the Junta de Extremadura and FEDER Funds within the VI Plan Regional de I + D + i (2017–2020) through the Research Project MitigaDehex (Project reference IB20070) which made this research possible.

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