A model based on socio-ecological systems

In order to build an integrated and structured representation of livestock farming and its integration into territories and food systems, La Grange's framework is based on research into socio-ecological systems. The concept of a ‘socio-ecological system’ allows us to examine the interactions between a social system composed of individual and collective users, mobilising technologies and infrastructure to manage resources, and an ecological system that generates these resources. The La Grange framework thus makes it possible to analyse i) the complexity of the social and ecological interactions at play within territories, ii) the relationships between the functions operating within agroecosystems, ecosystem services, the beneficiaries of these services and the values they attribute to them, and iii) ‘action situations’, i.e. how the social and ecological characteristics of a territory determine the actions of the various actors and ultimately enable them to achieve different objectives and performances on an individual and collective scale.

Livestock farming systems can thus be represented as the articulation between technical, ecological and social systems. The biotechnical component of livestock farming systems corresponds to animals (which may correspond to several workshops conducted separately or in an integrated manner, for example for feeding) and resources (fodder crops, grasslands, cash crops).

These three systems – ecological, technical (livestock farms and their place in the supply chain) and social – interact with each other at local and global levels. The behaviour of economic actors is partly defined by governance arrangements developed at different institutional levels: regional, national and European. Interactions between subsystems occur between levels and domains through biophysical and socio-economic processes. Thus, the state of resources at the landscape level (water, biodiversity) depends on land use. It affects biophysical processes at the field level (available water and biological regulations) and is influenced by environmental policies at the regional and national levels (e.g. water quality regulation policy). Local markets and institutions, and supply chains (labelled products) have varying degrees of interdependence. Interactions between ecological, economic and social domains shape agricultural practices.

Considering livestock farming as a socio-ecological system thus makes it possible to move from a simple list of criteria for assessing the different dimensions of sustainability to a synthetic and functional representation that facilitates the analysis of how the positive and negative effects of livestock farming and the consumption of animal products are interrelated. Developing a systemic view of livestock farming areas also makes it possible to take into account the fact that the actors who benefit from the positive effects of local livestock farming policies are not necessarily the same as those who suffer from the negative effects. Social trade-offs to resolve conflicts between services can be made at the local level through formalised mechanisms, at a more global level through regulatory standards (e.g. the Nitrates Directive), or in a more ‘diffuse’ and slow manner, for example through changes in consumer behaviour.