Factors Determining the Choice of Beef Production Systems; Implications for Land Use

Abstract

One has a lot of statistical data on the location of bovine production in the EEC, but, in fact, the production conditions are very heterogeneous and one has a very limited knowledge of the spatial relationship of production systems and of the diversity of their performance. Nevertheless, this knowledge is indispensable to understand and foresee the location and evolution of beef production. Using the French example, we present a rough spatial description of cattle production with an indication of the main features of production conditions (ecological, structural, historical factors). This very rough zoning aims to integrate simultaneously both the present features and the evolutionary tendencies of beef production. For each of these types of zone (zone of arable plains with fairly big farms; mountainous zone; intermediary zone of lowland and hills with smaller farms), we show the main factors determining the choice and working of beef production systems with their implications for land use. As a result of these comments, we underline the need for a new definition of the notion of potential (which in particular cannot be considered in a vacuum distinct from those who are destined to implement activities, and from the productive practices which mobilise resources); we emphasise the problem of the choice of scales for the analysis (scales of space : macroregional level, farm level, intermediary level of the ‘terroir’: scales of time); we raise the problem of the variable sensitivity of various types of zones to economic incentives and we identify some gaps in the present knowledge which it seems essential to fill in order to help construct a ‘physiology’ of agricultural space occupation.