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The objective in this paper is to identify driving forces and favourable factors that ensure the persistence of mountain livestock farms over time. The paths and processes of change are studied in a sample of 14 existing livestock farms near Chambéry in the Savoie, adopting a retrospective approach going back to the 1950s. The authors focus on key factors: workload, dairy restructuring and off-farm job opportunities. The results show that in this area, livestock farms have persisted thanks to the integration of other farming or off-farm activities in the farm-family system during at least one phase of their history.

ABSTRACT. Social-ecological resilience is defined by Brian Walker and colleagues as "the capacity of a social-ecological system (SES) to absorb disturbances and reorganize while undergoing change so as to continue to retain essentially the same function, structure, feedbacks, and therefore identity." It is an increasingly widespread concept whose success depends, among other things, on the promise of its rapid transfer from science into practice and its operational character for the sustainable management of SESs. However, tangible examples of management methods based on resilience remain limited in the scientific literature. Here, we test the resilience management framework proposed by Brian Walker and David Salt by applying it to the case of mountain summer pastures in the French Alps, which are complex SESs in which human and ecological dimensions are closely linked and subject to substantial perturbations due to climate change. Three steps were implemented: (1) building a conceptual model based on expert knowledge of the functioning of summer pastures; (2) building, from the model, a template for summer pasture resilience analysis; and (3) testing the operational character of the model and the template for two pairs of contrasting cases. This heuristic tool enables understanding the ways in which farmers and herders manage the resilience of their system but does not aim to quantify resilience. The method developed, together with the resilience concept, provide insights into the functioning of summer pastures from both biophysical and management perspectives. The modeling process constitutes a learning process, which will support the implementation of adaptive management. We identified three critical points for making the method truly operational: basing modeling on an equal consideration of social and ecological dimensions, defining the boundaries of the modeled system based on the social dimension, and selecting a scale of analysis coherent with the type of development actions to be implemented.

Drawing on a multidisciplinary survey carried out in three contrasting areas of the Rhône-Alpes Region in France, this article investigates how the concept of multifunctionality has been understood and appropriated. After a retrospective look at French agricultural policy, the first part presents our analytical framework, which is inspired by the sociology of action. The second part analyses the socio-political issues of farming in each area and the compromises established around the various functions attributed to agriculture. The third part highlights the different ways of considering and practising farming, as well as the social expectations towards agriculture. This regional comparison shows that professional identities are constructed at local levels in different places: the farms and their neighbourhood, local groups and agricultural organisations. Local agreements on agriculture and the construction of professional identities take into account multifunctionality in specific ways, which depend on the social and economic relationships that the farmers have established with their fellow citizens.T he concept of multifunctionality was introduced in various international negotia-

Comparativement aux exploitations minifundiaires, patronales, capitalistes ou étatiques, les exploitations agricoles familiales marchandes de taille moyenne font preuve d'une grande efficacité en matière de création de valeurs ajoutées et de maintien d'emplois en zones rurales. Celle-ci provient du fait que les exploitants optent souvent pour la mise en oeuvre de systèmes de production leur permettant de valoriser au mieux la force de travail familiale disponible en tenant compte des éventuelles opportunités d'emplois et sources de revenus « extérieurs ». Les systèmes de production agricole mis en oeuvre dans les exploitations familiales s'intègrent aisément au sein de systèmes d'activités plus globaux dont la « rentabilité » doit être appréciée en tenant soigneusement compte du coût d'opportunité de la force de travail. La décomposition des activités familiales en systèmes de production agricole et ensembles d'activités non agricoles n'en reste donc pas moins pertinente pour bien prendre en compte les pratiques et contraintes agronomiques : rotations, assolements, bilans fourragers, « transferts de fertilité », etc. Le concept d'exploitation agricole reste donc opératoire, même lorsqu'il ne s'avère pas y avoir de véritables « unités » de production ni de « centres » de décision uniques pour tout ce qui concerne ces activités. Mots clés : exploitation agricole moyenne ; pays en développement ; agriculture à temps partiel ; coût d'opportunité. Thèmes : systèmes agraires ; mécanisation et aménagement rural ; économie et développement rural.

Ecological intensification in grasslands can be regarded as a process for increasing forage production while maintaining high levels of ecosystem functions and biodiversity. In the mountain Vercors massif, where dairy cattle farming is the main component of agriculture, how to achieve forage autonomy at farm level while sustaining environmental quality for tourism and local dairy products has recently stimulated local debate. As specific management is one of the main drivers of ecosystem functioning, we assessed the response of forage production and environmental quality at grassland scale across a wide range of management practices. We aimed to determine which components of management can be harnessed to better match forage production and environmental quality. We sampled the vegetation of 51 grasslands stratified across 13 grassland types. We assessed each grassland for agronomic and environmental properties, measuring forage production, forage quality, and indices based on the abundance of particular plant species such as timing flexibility, apiarian potential, and aromatic plants. Our results revealed an expected trade-off between forage production and environmental quality, notably by stressing the contrasts between sown and permanent grasslands. However, strong within-type variability in both production and environmental quality as well as in flexibility of timing of use suggests possible ways to improve this trade-off at grassland and farm scales. As achieving forage autonomy relies on increasing both forage production and grassland resilience, our results highlight the critical role of the ratio between sown and permanent grasslands as a major path for ecological intensification in mountain grasslands.

Livestock farming systems in the French Alps are particularly exposed to the predicted climate change and most of them have already experienced periods of drought since the beginning of the 2000s. Faced with this risk, livestock farmers have put in place a certain number of measures and envisage introducing others in the future. For the present study, surveys were conducted among livestock farmers to identify these measures and analyses were carried out to characterise the attitudes of livestock farmers to drought conditions and to evaluate changes in the sensitivity of their livestock farming systems. With the exception of those farms with extensive irrigated areas, all the farms are seeking solutions to deal with the risks arising from droughts. One solution is to purchase fodder to compensate for the decrease in the harvests that normally provide animal feed in the winter; the amounts purchased vary with the length of wintering required. For the grazing periods, the high mountain livestock breeders and the dairy systems of the Northern Alps rely above all on extending and over-sizing the pasture areas in relation to the needs of the herds. The livestock farms of the Southern Alps also rely on the diversity of vegetation areas and a certain flexibility in the practices used to adapt to conditions experienced during the year. A succession of dry years could result in more radical breakdowns in the livestock systems. It should also be remembered that climate change is only one of the factors influencing the types of changes taking place on farms.
Les systèmes d'élevage des Alpes françaises sont fortement exposés au changement climatique annoncé et la plupart subissent déjà des épisodes de sécheresse depuis le début des années 2000. Face à ces aléas, les éleveurs ont mis en œuvre un certain nombre de leviers et envisagent d'en activer d'autres à l'avenir. Des enquêtes en exploitation ont permis d’identifier ces leviers. Leur analyse permet de caractériser les attitudes des éleveurs face aux sécheresses et d’évaluer l’évolution de la sensibilité de leurs systèmes d’élevage. A l'exception des exploitations disposant de surfaces irriguées importantes, toutes les exploitations cherchent d'abord à contourner l’aléa. Elles ont recours aux achats de fourrage pour compenser la baisse des récoltes destinées aux stocks hivernaux, mais à des degrés divers selon la durée de l’hivernage. Pour les périodes de pâturage, les éleveurs de haute montagne et les systèmes laitiers des Alpes du nord jouent avant tout sur un système résistant grâce à l’agrandissement et au surdimensionnement des pâtures par rapport aux besoins du troupeau. Les exploitations pastorales des Alpes du sud misent aussi sur une diversité de surfaces et une certaine latitude dans la conduite technique pour s'adapter aux conditions de l'année. Une succession répétée d’années sèches pourrait se traduire par des ruptures plus radicales dans les systèmes d’élevage. Il faut aussi garder à l’esprit que le changement climatique n'est qu'un des facteurs influençant...