Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T02:21:45.014Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2017

J. P. Domingues ,
J. Ryschawy ,
T. Bonaudo ,
B. Gabrielle  and
M. Tichit
J. P. Domingues*
Affiliation:
UMR SADAPT, INRA, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 75005 Paris, France
J. Ryschawy
Affiliation:
AGIR, Université de Toulouse, INPT, INP-Purpan, INRA, Université de Toulouse, 31320 Auzeville, France
T. Bonaudo
Affiliation:
UMR SADAPT, INRA, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 75005 Paris, France
B. Gabrielle
Affiliation:
UMR ECOSYS, INRA, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 78850 Thiverval-Grignon, France
M. Tichit*
Affiliation:
UMR SADAPT, INRA, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 75005 Paris, France
*
†E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
†E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

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.

Keywords

livestock farming systemsdrivers of changeintensification dynamicsland use changelong-term trajectories
Type
Research Article
Information
animal , Volume 12 , Issue 8 , August 2018 , pp. 1652 - 1661
Copyright
© The Animal Consortium 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agreste 2015. Service de la Statistique et de la Prospective (SSP) du Ministère de l’Agriculture, de l’Agroalimentaire et de la Forêt. Retrieved on 13 August 2015 from https://stats.agriculture.gouv.fr/disar/ Google Scholar
Alexander, P, Rounsevell, MDA, Dislich, C, Dodson, JR, Engström, K and Moran, D 2015. Drivers for global agricultural land use change: the nexus of diet, population, yield and bioenergy. Global Environmental Change 35, 138–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beudou, J, Martin, G and Ryschawy, J 2017. Cultural and Territorial Vitality Services Play a Key Role in Livestock Agroecological Transition in France. Agronomy for Sustainable Development 37, 36.Google Scholar
Bouwman, AF, Van der Hoek, KW, Eickhout, B and Soenario, I 2005. Exploring changes in world ruminant production systems. Agricultural Systems 84, 121–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cavailhes, J, Bonnemaire, J, Raichon, C and Delamarche, F 1987. Caractères régionaux de l’histoire de l'élevage en France. 1-Methodographie et résultats statistiques 1938-1980. Systèmes Agraires et Développement (SAD), Versailles, France.Google Scholar
Chantre, E and Cardona, A 2014. Trajectories of French field crop farmers moving toward sustainable farming practices: change, learning, and links with the advisory services. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 38, 573–602.Google Scholar
Chatzimpiros, P and Barles, S 2010. Nitrogen, land and water inputs in changing cattle farming systems. A historical comparison for France, 19th-21st centuries. The Science of the Total Environment 408, 4644–4653.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Darnhofer, I, Bellon, S, Dedieu, B and Milestad, R 2010. Adaptiveness to enhance the sustainability of farming systems. A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development 30, 545–555.Google Scholar
Dolédec, S and Chessel, D 1987. Seasonal successions and spatial variables in freshwater environments. I. Description of a complete two-way layout by projection of variables. Acta Oecologica, Oecologia Generalis 8, 403–426.Google Scholar
Erb, KH 2012. How a socio-ecological metabolism approach can help to advance our understanding of changes in land-use intensity. Ecological Economics 76, 8–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fearne, A 1997. The History and Development of the CAP 1945-1990. In The Common Agricultural Policy (ed. C Ritson and DR Harvey), CAB International, New York, NY, USA.Google Scholar
Gambino, M 2014. Les mutations des systèmes productifs français: le modèle breton, à revisiter. France : les mutations des systèmes productifs. Retrieved on 31 October 2016 from https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01151135 Google Scholar
García-Martínez, A, Olaizola, A and Bernués, A 2009. Trajectories of evolution and drivers of change in European mountain cattle farming systems. Animal 3, 152–165.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garnett, T and Godfray, C 2012. Sustainable intensification in agriculture. Navigating a course through competing food system priorities. Food Climate Research Network and the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, Oxford, UK.Google Scholar
Gerber, PJ, Uwizeye, A, Schulte, RPO, Opio, CI and de Boer, IJM 2014. Nutrient use efficiency: a valuable approach to benchmark the sustainability of nutrient use in global livestock production? Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 9, 122–130.Google Scholar
Godfray, HCJ, Beddington, JR, Crute, IR, Haddad, L, Lawrence, D, Muir, JF, Pretty, J, Robinson, S, Thomas, SM and Toulmin, C 2012. The challenge of food security. Science 327, 812.Google Scholar
Hazell, P and Wood, S 2007. Drivers of change in global agriculture. Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363, 495–515.Google Scholar
Herzog, F, Steiner, B, Bailey, D, Baudry, J, Billeter, R, Bukácek, R and Bugter, R 2006. Assessing the intensity of temperate European agriculture at the landscape scale. European Journal of Agronomy 24, 165–181.Google Scholar
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations 2012. Global Agro-ecological Zones (GAEZ v3.0) – model documentation. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria and FAO, Rome, Italy.Google Scholar
Isoni, A 2015. The Common Agriculture Policy (CAP): achievements and future prospects. In Law and agroecology: a transdisciplinary dialogue (eds M Monteduro, P Buongiorno, S Di Benedetto and A Isoni), pp. 185–206. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, Germany.Google Scholar
Kastner, T, Rivas, MJI, Koch, W and Nonhebel, S 2012. Global changes in diets and the consequences for land requirements for food. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 109, 6868–6872.Google Scholar
Krausmann, F, Haberl, H, Schulz, NB, Erb, KH, Darge, E and Gaube, V 2003. Land-use change and socio-economic metabolism in Austria – part I: driving forces of land-use change: 1950–1995. Land Use Policy 20, 1–20.Google Scholar
Lassaletta, L, Billen, G, Grizzetti, B, Garnier, J, Leach, AM and Galloway, JN 2014. Food and feed trade as a driver in the global nitrogen cycle: 50-year trends. Biogeochemistry 118, 225–241.Google Scholar
MacDonald, D, Crabtree, J, Wiesinger, G, Dax, T, Stamou, N, Fleury, P, Gutierrez Lazpita, J and Gibon, A 2000. Agricultural abandonment in mountain areas of Europe: environmental consequences and policy response. Journal of Environmental Management 59, 47–69.Google Scholar
Mazoyer, M and Roudart, L 2006. A history of world agriculture from the Neolithic age to the current crisis. Earthscan, New York, NY, USA.Google Scholar
Mottet, A, Ladet, S, Coqué, N and Gibon, A 2006. Agricultural land-use change and its drivers in mountain landscapes: a case study in the Pyrenees. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 114, 296–310.Google Scholar
Neumann, K, Elbersen, BS, Verburg, PH, Staritsky, I, Perez-Soba, M, de Vries, W and Rienks, WA 2009. Modelling the spatial distribution of livestock in Europe. Landscape Ecology 24, 1207–1222.Google Scholar
Nisar Ahamed, TR, Gopal Rao, K and Murthy, JSR 2000. GIS-based fuzzy membership model for crop-land suitability analysis. Agricultural Systems 63, 75–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peyraud, JL, Taboada, M and Delaby, L 2014. Integrated crop and livestock systems in Western Europe and South America: a review. European Journal of Agronomy 57, 31–42.Google Scholar
Potter, C and Lobley, M 1996. The farm family life cycle, succession paths and environmental change in Britain’s countryside. Journal of Agricultural Economics 47, 172–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Core Team 2015. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Retrieved on 18 June 2015 from http://www.r-project.org/ Google Scholar
Roguet, C, Gaigne, C, Chatellier, V, Cariou, S, Carlier, M, Chenut, R and Perrot, C 2015. Regional specialization and concentration of European livestock: situation and explanatory factors. INRA Productions Animales 28, 5–21.Google Scholar
Rosset, PM and Altieri, MA 1997. Agroecology versus input substitution: a fundamental contradiction of sustainable agriculture. Society & Natural Resources 10, 283–295.Google Scholar
Ryschawy, J, Choisis, N, Choisis, JP and Gibon, A 2013. Paths to last in mixed crop-livestock farming: lessons from an assessment of farm trajectories of change. Animal 7, 673–681.Google Scholar
Shriar, AJ 2000. Agricultural intensity and its measurement in frontier regions. Agroforestry Systems 49, 301–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soto, D, Infante-Amate, J, Guzman, GI, Cid, A, Aguilera, E, Garcia, R and Gonzalez de Molina, M 2016. The social metabolism of biomass in Spain, 1900-2008: from food to feed-oriented changes in the agro-ecosystems. Ecological Economics 128, 130–138.Google Scholar
Teillard, F, Allaire, G, Cahuzac, E, Léger, F, Maigné, E and Tichit, M 2012. A Novel method for mapping agricultural intensity reveals its spatial aggregation: implications for conservation policies. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 149, 135–143.Google Scholar
Temme, AJAM and Verburg, PH 2011. Mapping and modelling of changes in agricultural intensity in Europe. Agriculture, Ecosystems and E755nvironment 140, 46–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, PK 2010. Livestock production: recent trends, future prospects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 365, 2853–2867.Google Scholar
van Zanten, HHE, Mollenhorst, H, Klootwijk, CW, van Middelaar, CE and de Boer, IJM 2016. Global food supply: land use efficiency of livestock systems. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 21, 747–758.Google Scholar
Veysset, P, Bebin, D and Lherm, M 2005. Adaptation to Agenda 2000 (CAP reform) and optimisation of the farming system of French suckler cattle farms in the Charolais area: a model-based study. Agricultural Systems 83, 179–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xiao, Y, Mignolet, C, Mari, JF and Benoît, M 2015. Characterizing historical (1992–2010) transitions between grassland and cropland in mainland France through mining land-cover survey data. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 14, 1511–1523.Google Scholar
Zabel, F, Putzenlechner, B and Mauser, W 2014. Global agricultural land resources – a high resolution suitability evaluation and its perspectives until 2100 under climate change conditions. PLoS ONE 9, e107522.Google Scholar
Zhang, X, Eric, AD, Denise, LM, Timothy, DS, Patrice, D and Ye, S 2015. Managing nitrogen for sustainable development. Nature 528, 51–59.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Domingues et al supplementary material 1

Supplementary Table

Download Domingues et al supplementary material 1(File)
File 19.7 KB