A Typological Characterization of Organic Livestock Farms in the Natural Park Sierra de Grazalema Based on Technical and Economic Variables

Abstract

This paper describes the typological characterization of the Natural Park Sierra de Grazalema (NPSG) livestock farms using its communal pastures (N = 23, 100% of population) in order to study their sustainability from 160 technical, economic and social variables (from direct on-farm data collection). A principal components analysis (PCA) produced four principal components related to size, livestock species, main productions and intensification level, explaining 73.6% of the variance. The subsequent cluster analysis classified the farms into four groups: C1 (medium size farms without sheep), C2 (large size and very extensive farms), C3 (farms with multipurpose sheep) and C4 (farms with dairy goat and without cattle). Forty-eight-point-seven percent of the surface was registered as organic but none of the farms’ commercialized products were organic. C2 and C3 (both having three ruminant species) are those farms that have more economic differences, the former generating the lowest profit, and the latter generating the highest; however, there is a risk to grasslands conservation from the current tendency that leads dairy farms to rapid intensification. Nevertheless, the very extensive farms are the most interesting for NPSG conservation and the administration should help to maintain the profitability of this sustainable traditional activity, which is necessary to conserve communal pastures.

Assessment of the Sustainability of Extensive Livestock Farms on the Common Grasslands of the Natural Park Sierra de Grazalema

“…The NPSG has been briefly described by Díaz Gaona et al [4]. Its climate is Mediterranean, humid with mild temperatures and seasonal rainfall, which ranges from 700 to 2300 mm per year.…”

“…The information necessary to develop this work was obtained through the collection of primary data from direct interviews with the farmers. The interview questionnaire included 303 questions [4] relative to the three following aspects: sociology (27), exploitation systems (224), and economy (52). Some of the questions to the farmers were about information that cannot be directly measured (i.e., the date of purchase of a piece of machinery or date of construction of facilities).…”

“…Some of the questions to the farmers were about information that cannot be directly measured (i.e., the date of purchase of a piece of machinery or date of construction of facilities). For more information, see the previous study by Díaz-Gaona et al [4].…”

“…This would be the case for most of the NPAs in Andalusia (a region in southern Spain), which has 24 Natural Parks and a total protected land area of 2,825,347.20 ha [3]. Some of these have been studied [4,5], such as the Natural Park Sierra de Grazalema (NPSG), which was the first Spanish UNESCO Biosphere reserve (declared in 1977) and the first Andalusian Natural Park (declared in 1984); this is the model under study in the present work. Additionally, the NPSG was included as a Place of Community Importance (known by the acronym LIC) in 2006 and, together with other NPAs in Andalusia and Morocco, is part of the Mediterranean Intercontinental Biosphere Reserve.…”

“…The objective of this article is to evaluate the sustainability of all the extensive livestock farms on the common grasslands of the NPSG to establish comparisons between the four different types of farms described in a previous article by Díaz-Gaona et al [4]. With this evaluation, it will be possible to show the weaknesses of these farms in order to know what should be done to avoid a further reduction in the number of herds that graze on these communal pastures, since livestock grazing is necessary to maintain their equilibrium.…”