Review: An integrated graphical tool for analysing impacts and services provided by livestock farming.

Livestock farming is criticized for negatively impacting the environment, concerns about animal welfare and the impact of excessive meat consumption on human health. However, livestock farming provides other underappreciated and poorly communicated benefits to society in terms of employment, product quality, cultural landscapes and carbon storage by grasslands. Few attempts have been made so far to simultaneously consider the services and impacts provided by livestock production. Here, we propose an integrated graphical tool, called the 'barn' to explicitly summarize the synergies and trade-offs between services and impacts provided by livestock farming. It illustrates livestock farming interacting with its physical, economic and social environment along five interfaces: (i) Markets, (ii) Work and employment, (iii) Inputs, (iv) Environment and climate, (v) Social and cultural factors. This graphical tool was then applied by comparing two contrasting livestock production areas (high livestock density v. grassland-based), and the dominant v. a niche system within a crop-livestock area. We showed the barn could be used for cross-comparisons of services and impacts across livestock production areas, and for multi-level analysis of services and impacts of livestock farming within a given area. The barn graphically summarizes the ecological and socio-economic aspects of livestock farming by explicitly representing multiple services and impacts of different systems in a simple yet informative way. Information for the five interfaces relies on available quantitative assessments from the literature or data sets, and on expert-knowledge for more qualitative factors, such as social and cultural ones. The 'barn' can also inform local stakeholders or policy-makers about potential opportunities and threats to the future of livestock farming in specific production areas. It has already been used as a pedagogical tool for teaching the diversity of services and impacts of livestock systems across Europe and is currently developed as a serious game for encouraging knowledge exchange and sharing different viewpoints between stakeholders.

Review: Associations among goods, impacts and ecosystem services provided by livestock farming.

Livestock is a major driver in most rural landscapes and economics, but it also polarises debate over its environmental impacts, animal welfare and human health. Conversely, the various services that livestock farming systems provide to society are often overlooked and have rarely been quantified. The aim of analysing bundles of services is to chart the coexistence and interactions between the various services and impacts provided by livestock farming, and to identify sets of ecosystem services (ES) that appear together repeatedly across sites and through time. We review three types of approaches that analyse associations among impacts and services from local to global scales: (i) detecting ES associations at system or landscape scale, (ii) identifying and mapping bundles of ES and impacts and (iii) exploring potential drivers using prospective scenarios. At a local scale, farming practices interact with landscape heterogeneity in a multi-scale process to shape grassland biodiversity and ES. Production and various ES provided by grasslands to farmers, such as soil fertility, biological regulations and erosion control, benefit to some extent from the functional diversity of grassland species, and length of pasture phase in the crop rotation. Mapping ES from the landscape up to the EU-wide scale reveals a frequent trade-off between livestock production on one side and regulating and cultural services on the other. Maps allow the identification of target areas with higher ecological value or greater sensitivity to risks. Using two key factors (livestock density and the proportion of permanent grassland within utilised agricultural area), we identified six types of European livestock production areas characterised by contrasted bundles of services and impacts. Livestock management also appeared to be a key driver of bundles of services in prospective scenarios. These scenarios simulate a breakaway from current production, legislation (e.g. the use of food waste to fatten pigs) and consumption trends (e.g. halving animal protein consumption across Europe). Overall, strategies that combine a reduction of inputs, of the use of crops from arable land to feed livestock, of food waste and of meat consumption deliver a more sustainable food future. Livestock as part of this sustainable future requires further enhancement, quantification and communication of the services provided by livestock farming to society, which calls for the following: (i) a better targeting of public support, (ii) more precise quantification of bundles of services and (iii) better information to consumers and assessment of their willingness to pay for these services.

Unravelling the physical, technological and economic factors driving the intensification trajectories of livestock systems.

Over the past 100 years, the French livestock sector has experienced significant intensification that has occurred in different ways across the country. Specifically, France has changed from a homogeneous state with most of the agricultural area covered by grasslands and a uniform distribution of animals, to a heterogeneous state characterised by an uneven distribution of grasslands, livestock numbers and livestock species. Studying the dynamics of this change is fundamental to the identification of drivers that shaped the various intensification trajectories and led to these different states, as well as to the prediction of future changes. Hence, the objective of this study was to characterise the trajectories undertaken by the French livestock sector to understand the intensification process and the role of socioeconomic, land use and production-related factors. A set of 10 indicators was employed to analyse the main changes between 1938 and 2010, using principal component analysis followed by a clustering of the 88 French departments. Between 1938 and 2010, significant increases in farm size, mechanisation, labour productivity and the stocking rates of monogastrics enabled the French livestock sector to double its production. The most important changes involved mechanisation (with the number of tractors per hectare (ha) rising from 0.0012 to 0.0053), labour productivity (improving from 8.6 to 35.9 ha/worker), livestock production (e.g. milk production increasing from 758 to 1856 l/ha of fodder area) and stocking rates (rising from 0.57 to 0.98 livestock units (LU) per ha). The increased heterogeneity apparent in the patterns of change throughout France's departments was captured by clustering four trajectories. Two trajectories were formed by departments that experienced strong specialisation towards livestock production, with one type mainly orientated towards high-intensive dairy, poultry and pig landless production systems, and a second type orientated towards extensive beef grazing production systems. Another trajectory corresponded to departments that specialised in crop production with high labour productivity; mixed crop-livestock systems were still maintained at the margins of this group of departments. The fourth trajectory corresponded to the lowest livestock population and productivity levels. The increase in mechanisation during the period was important but uniform, with no significant differences between the trajectories. This typology of intensification trajectories will enable the targeting of specific areas in which the detrimental impacts of livestock intensification require mitigation and provide guidance for future livestock sector developments.

Assessing multiple goods and services derived from livestock farming on a nation-wide gradient.

Livestock farming is an essential activity in many rural areas, where it contributes to the maintenance of soil fertility and farmland biodiversity, as well as to a set of social public goods including food security, rural vitality and culture. However, livestock sustainability assessments tend to focus primarily on environmental and economic dimensions; therefore, these valuations might be limited because they do not consider the complete set of associated goods and services (GS). Hence, a need exists to recognise the multiple contributions provided by livestock to human well-being and society. The objective of this study was to analyse the provision of multiple GS derived from livestock across regions in France and empirically demonstrate sets of GS that repeatedly appeared together. We designated these multiple GS provided by livestock as contributions to productive, environmental, rural vitality and cultural benefits that human populations derive directly or indirectly from livestock agroecosystems. First, we combined expert knowledge with results of a literature review to define a bundle of GS provided by livestock. We then described indicators that quantified each good or service and screened national databases to determine the availability of supporting data. Finally, we assessed the GS and their relationships (synergies or trade-offs) on a nation-wide gradient in France at the department level (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 3). Four main categories of GS were considered: provisioning (e.g. food quantity and quality), environmental quality (e.g. biodiversity, landscape heterogeneity, water quality), rural vitality (e.g. employment, rural dynamism) and culture (e.g. gastronomy and landscape heritage). Four major types of GS bundles were identified, which suggested strong contrasts among French rural areas in terms of the nature of the GS that occurred together and their levels of provision. GS bundles in France had a non-random spatial distribution. This study represents an initial step towards developing a methodology to consider GS bundles provided by livestock. Nonetheless, further research is needed to understand socio-economic, environmental, political and geographic determinants of the composition of GS bundles.

Evaluating environmental impacts of contrasting pig farming systems with life cycle assessment.

Environmental impacts of 15 European pig farming systems were evaluated in the European Union Q-PorkChains project using life cycle assessment. One conventional and two non-conventional systems were evaluated from each of the five countries: Denmark, The Netherlands, Spain, France and Germany. The data needed for calculations were obtained from surveys of 5 to 10 farms from each system. The systems studied were categorised into conventional (C), adapted conventional (AC), traditional (T) and organic (O). Compared with C systems, AC systems differed little, with only minor changes to improve meat quality, animal welfare or environmental impacts, depending on the system. The difference was much larger for T systems, using very fat, slow-growing traditional breeds and generally outdoor raising of fattening pigs. Environmental impacts were calculated at the farm gate and expressed per kg of pig live weight and per ha of land used. For C systems, impacts per kg LW for climate change, acidification, eutrophication, energy use and land occupation were 2.3 kg CO2-eq, 44.0 g SO2-eq, 18.5 g PO4-eq, 16.2 MJ and 4.1 m2, respectively. Compared with C, differences in corresponding mean values were +13%, +5%, 0%, +2% and +16% higher for AC; +54%, +79%, +23%, +50% and +156% for T, and +4%, -16%, +29%, +11% and +121% for O. Conversely, when expressed per ha of land use, mean impacts were 10% to 60% lower for T and O systems, depending on the impact category. This was mainly because of higher land occupation per kg of pig produced, owing to feed production and the outdoor raising of sows and/or fattening pigs. The use of straw bedding tended to increase climate change impact per kg LW. The use of traditional local breeds, with reduced productivity and feed efficiency, resulted in higher impacts per kg LW for all impact categories. T systems with extensive outdoor raising of pigs resulted in markedly lower impact per ha of land used. Eutrophication potential per ha was substantially lower for O systems. Conventional systems had lower global impacts (global warming, energy use, land use), expressed per kg LW, whereas differentiated systems had lower local impacts (eutrophication, acidification), expressed per ha of land use.

Paths to last in mixed crop-livestock farming: lessons from an assessment of farm trajectories of change.

Mixed crop-livestock systems, combining livestock and cash crops at farm level, are considered to be suitable for sustainable intensification of agriculture. Ensuring the survival of mixed crop-livestock systems is a challenge for European agriculture: the number of European mixed crop-livestock farms has been decreasing since 1970. Analysis of farming system dynamics may elucidate past changes and the forces driving this decline. The objectives of this study were (i) to identify the diversity of paths that allowed the survival of mixed crop-livestock farming and (ii) to elucidate the driving forces behind such survival. We analysed the variety of farm trajectories from 1950 to 2005. We studied the entire farm population of a case study site, located in the 'Coteaux de Gascogne' region. In this less favoured area of south-western France, farmers have limited specialisation. Currently, half of the farms use mixed crop-livestock systems. The data set of 20 variables for 50 farms on the basis of six 10-year time steps was collected through retrospective surveys. We used a two-step analysis including (i) a visual assessment of the whole population of individual farm trajectories and (ii) a computer-based typology of farm trajectories on the basis of a series of multivariate analyses followed by automatic clustering. The European Common Agricultural Policy, market globalisation and decreasing workforce availability were identified as drivers of change that favoured the specialisation process. Nevertheless, farmers' choices and values have opposed against these driving forces, ensuring the survival of some mixed crop-livestock farming systems. The trajectories were clustered into five types, four of which were compatible with mixed crop-livestock systems. The first type was the maximisation of autonomy by combining crops and livestock. The second type was diversification of production to exploit economies of scope and protect the farm against market fluctuations. The other two types involved enlargement and progressive adaptation of the farm to the familial workforce. The survival of mixed crop-livestock systems in these two types is largely dependent on workforce availability. Only one type of trajectory, on the basis of enlargement and economies of scale, did not lead to mixed crop-livestock systems. In view of the current evolution of the driving forces, maximising autonomy and diversification appear to be suitable paths to deal with current challenges and maintain mixed crop-livestock systems in Europe.

Mixed crop-livestock systems: an economic and environmental-friendly way of farming?

Intensification and specialisation of agriculture in developed countries enabled productivity to be improved but had detrimental impacts on the environment and threatened the economic viability of a huge number of farms. The combination of livestock and crops, which was very common in the past, is assumed to be a viable alternative to specialised livestock or cropping systems. Mixed crop-livestock systems can improve nutrient cycling while reducing chemical inputs and generate economies of scope at farm level. Most assumptions underlying these views are based on theoretical and experimental evidence. Very few assessments of their environmental and economic advantages have nevertheless been undertaken in real-world farming conditions. In this paper, we present a comparative assessment of the environmental and economic performances of mixed crop-livestock farms v. specialised farms among the farm population of the French 'Coteaux de Gascogne'. In this hilly region, half of the farms currently use a mixed crop-livestock system including beef cattle and cash crops, the remaining farms being specialised in either crops or cattle. Data were collected through an exhaustive survey of farms located in our study area. The economic performances of farming systems were assessed on 48 farms on the basis of (i) overall gross margin, (ii) production costs and (iii) analysis of the sensitivity of gross margins to fluctuations in the price of inputs and outputs. The environmental dimension was analysed through (i) characterisation of farmers' crop management practices, (ii) analysis of farm land use diversity and (iii) nitrogen farm-gate balance. Local mixed crop-livestock farms did not have significantly higher overall gross margins than specialised farms but were less sensitive than dairy and crop farms to fluctuations in the price of inputs and outputs considered. Mixed crop-livestock farms had lower costs than crop farms, while beef farms had the lowest costs as they are grass-based systems. Concerning crop management practices, our results revealed an intensification gradient from low to high input farming systems. Beyond some general trends, a wide range of management practices and levels of intensification were observed among farms with a similar production system. Mixed crop-livestock farms were very heterogeneous with respect to the use of inputs. Nevertheless, our study revealed a lower potential for nitrogen pollution in mixed crop-livestock and beef production systems than in dairy and crop farming systems. Even if a wide variability exists within system, mixed crop-livestock systems appear to be a way for an environmental and economical sustainable agriculture.