Multifunctionality of livestock to support plain‐mountain complementarities. The Fricato case study in the french mediterranean area

A shift between intensive farming in plains and the weak maintenance of livestock pastoral farming in french mediterranean mountains is a result of the public policies applied to agriculture modernisation during second half of 20th century. this development scheme seems to show its own limits. In peri-urban areas, like Claira village in the Pyrénées Orientales department, following wine crisis 40 % of arable land are under abandonment and at risk to be lose as productive areas (becoming urbanized or recreational area..). It seems that due to a new agrement considering livestock farming multifunctionality, these could become a resource for this activity, strengthening so synergies between livestock farming from foothill and lowland farming. The Fricato development project, under progress, contribute in that way to elaborate more sustainable and diversified farming activities. Objectives: The Fricato project is associating local stakeholders from lowland and landless livestock farmers from the foothill of the Canigou mountain. It aims at giving access for livestock farmers to the peri-urban abandoned arable lands to grow forages on an agro-ecological way. This is so promoting diversified landscapes of lowlands and livestock farming of foothills through delivering winter forages. As a wide range of activities and stakeholders are embbeded, our study is a comprehensive approach to understand expectations and point of views of actors as well as the ways this could reinforce complementarities between lowlands and mountains. Lessons learned/Results: 1) The animations from local authorities toward landowners let arable land available for forage farming. Other local communities in lowlands are joining the project. The livestock farmers spatially distant and isolated get integrated in a collective action rooted at regional scale. 2) Through the first step of this project, it as been possible to design the functional unit of such a project: 7 to 10 livestock farmers gathering 100 hectares available to grow winter forages. 3) Common learning took place between stakeholders (livestock farmers, landowners, residents, hunters associations), it accompany an emerging skill linking diversification of agrosystems in lowlands and sustainability of livestock pastoral systems. 4) Farmers are taking advantages of lower dependencies toward purchased forages. Some remaining questions have to be solved i) ability for small livestock farmers regarding investment on the cropping chain and storage facilities without public funding ;ii) a profitability for livestock farmers to return fallow lands to cultivated ones is possible only on mid term while landowners may engage on land availability for short terms. Conclusions/Next steps: Such projects could be extended at régional scale depending on the public incentives and involvement of local authorities to coordinate actions. These organisation of complementarities lowlands/mountains rely on a deep recognition of the multifunctionality of livestock farming shared between stakeholders, rooted in local projects. It is a guaranty to extend the experiment and to keep the small size livestock farmers in the play. Otherwise other operators, as large size crop-livestock farmers, could take the advantage to extend their activitie