2023/10/27 by Veysset, Patrick, Lherm, Michel, Bébin, Didier +1
#Agriculture biologique #Bovin viande #Economics #Environment #Environnement #Farming systems #Microéconomie #Mixed crop - livestock systems #Organic farming #Polyculture-élevage #Suckler cattle #Système de production
paper · doi:10.17180/d9sg-ky59
Mixed crop-livestock farming is cited in a broad consensus as an economic and environmental-friendly farming system. From a 66 Charolais suckler-cattle farms network, we sorted the specialized beef farms and mixed crop-livestock farms (conventional and organic). Our goal was to analyze the results: structure, technical, economical and environmental performances. The 21 conventional mixed croplivestock farms proved to be less efficient in the inputs use and, therefore, not more (or even less) efficient at the economic and environmental level. It seems that for these 21 suckler-cattle farms the concept of economies of scope was not valid. The 7 organic farms most efficiently exploited the diversity of herd feed resources, thus positioning organic agriculture as a prototype of mixed croplivestock system meeting the core principles of agroecology.