What action logics do family livestock farmers have to maintain their activity over the long term ?

This paper sheds light on what livestock farmers do to "last" over the long term, from their own point of view, through explanation and analysis of their action logics. The authors take the examples of four contrasted case studies carried out in France, Uruguay and Argentina, on a total of 45 family livestock systems. Each study of changes in the livestock systems was carried out using cross?disciplinary approaches (livestock sciences, sociology, management sciences) and resulted in descriptions of types of adaptive paths, that are explanations of adaptive paths taken by family livestock systems in relation with farmers' action logics (logics being defined as particular sets of action principles). This diversity of action logics is cross?analysed in order to patterns to test the hypothesis that production context has an effect - or no effect ? on action logics. The conceptual framework used in the four case studies recognizes the capacity of systems to absorb internal and external disturbances. Some generic styles of logics and action domains emerge from the comparison and are relevant to build up adaptive patterns, such as: to tend towards technical optimization or to diversify, to enlarge production volumes or farm structure (livestock and land), to search for autonomy, to be innovative, to preserve internal flexibility for the technical system. The combination of such domains determines generic adaptive patterns and paths that are taken by family livestock systems, independently of the context. The authors then discuss the different adaptive patterns and how these patterns provide evolution and resilience perspectives for family livestock systems. (Résumé d'auteur