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Transition to self-sufficient mixed crop–dairy farming systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2013

Xavier Coquil ,
Pascal Béguin  and
Benoît Dedieu
Xavier Coquil*
Affiliation:
INRA UR 055 ASTER-Mirecourt, 662, Avenue Louis Buffet, F-88500, France INRA UMR 1273 METAFORT, Theix, F-63122 Saint-Genès-Champanelle, France
Pascal Béguin
Affiliation:
IETL, Université de Lyon 2, 86, rue Pasteur F-69365 Lyon cedex 07, France
Benoît Dedieu
Affiliation:
Departement SAD, INRA UR 1218, Theix, F-63122 Saint-Genès-Champanelle, France
*
*Corresponding author: coquil@mirecourt.inra.fr
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Abstract

While plains favorable to agriculture are still dominated by specialized and intensive agriculture, self-sufficient mixed crop-dairy farming systems increasingly attract policy makers' and scientists' attention. Owing to their limited use of purchased inputs, they can contribute to reducing the environmental impact of agriculture. Furthermore, self-sufficient farming tends to be linked with a search for autonomy in decision-making, i.e., farmers developing their own technical reference framework. Such farming systems can thus also contribute to alternative development pathways of rural territories. In this paper, we analyze how ten intensive mixed crop–dairy farms have progressively evolved toward more self-sufficient and autonomous systems. Through formalizing farmers' transition in action, we identified 34 tools that the farmers implemented making them reflect on their farming system, shift socio-professional networks, reorganize work routines, and steer the evolution of their production practices. For example, they created temporary pastures in crop rotation, introduced rotational pastures, observed their herds to adjust their feed and keep the animals in good health, and they limited expenditures to manage their cash flow. Which tools were used and when they were used depends on what is meaningful to them at various stages of the transition. Our analysis of transitions in action has three original features: it is centered on the transition as perceived by the actors who experience and manage it; it proposes a long-term conceptualization of the dynamics of farming systems, based on the farmer's initiative and creativity; and it highlights tools implemented by farmers during the transition to self-sufficiency and autonomy.

Keywords

autonomyself-sufficiencymixed crop–dairy systemstransition
Type
Themed Content: Integrated Crop–Livestock Systems
Information
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems , Volume 29 , Issue 3: Special Section: Themed Content: Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems , September 2014 , pp. 195 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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