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Optimising economic and environmental performances of sheep-meat farms does not fully fit with the meat industry demands
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2019-07-31
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Benoit, M., Sabatier, R., Lasseur, J. et al. Optimising economic and environmental performances of sheep-meat farms does not fully fit with the meat industry demands. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 39, 40 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-019-0588-9
Abstract
Ruminant farming systems are questioned for their contribution to climate change and feed-food competition. Here, we
analyse the economic and environmental performances of five sheep farming systems optimised in terms of ewe
productivity and feeding costs. Systems are located in contrasting biogeographical areas along a gradient of decreasing
agronomic potential from Ireland to the French Mediterranean rangelands. Applying a mechanistic model of flock and
farm operation management to evaluate these five systems made it possible to highlight trade-offs between their
economic performance under standardised economic conditions, environmental performances, and feed-food competition, but also discrepancies between sheep farm strategy and meat industry demands. Different management strategies
resulted in ewe productivity ranging from 0.82 to 1.66 lambs ewe−1 year−1 between farming systems and concentrate use
from 0 to 148 kg ewe−1 year −1
. The two systems relying the most on grassland and rangelands show the best economic
and environmental performances while minimising feed-food competition. This results from a good match between
animal feed requirements and forage availability; these systems, however, generate a high seasonality of production
that does not meet the industry demand for a regular meat supply throughout the year. The Irish system also follows a
forage autonomy strategy, but with poorer environmental and economic performance due to intensification, higher price
of land, and lower meat price. Both the accelerated reproduction system with three lambing periods in two years and the
organic system generate a more regular lamb supply, but require a higher level of concentrate feed, which negatively
affects performances. These results highlight for the first time that optimising economic and environmental performances
at farm level does not fully fit with the meat industry demand for a regular lamb meat supply throughout the year and
lamb conformation. Low-productivity but fully self-sufficient fodder livestock systems can achieve excellent economic
performance, but require both specific skills and marketing adequacy.