De 1990 à 2012, les exploitations d'élevage bovins viande françaises ont accru leur taille et leur productivité du travail de plus de 60 % grâce, notamment, à une substitution travail/capital et à une simplification de certaines pratiques d'alimentation du troupeau, entre autres. L'efficience technique des systèmes de production, mesurée par le ratio volume de production hors aides/volume des consommations intermédiaires a baissé de près de 20 %, alors que le revenu par travailleur s'est maintenu grâce aux aides et aux gains de productivité physique du travail. Cette efficience technique est positivement corrélée à l'autonomie alimentaire des exploitations, elle-même négativement corrélée à la taille des exploitations et des troupeaux. Alors que le volume de production par hectare de surface agricole utilisée a stagné, l'autonomie alimentaire par les fourrages (la valorisation de l'herbe) a perdu 6 points. Les 23 années de progrès génétique, technique, technologique et des connaissances ont accompagné l'augmentation continue de la taille des exploitations et de la productivité du travail, et ont donc juste permis de compenser la diminution d'efficience des systèmes de production.

Over the past 23 years (1990 to 2012), French beef cattle farms have expanded in size and increased labour productivity by over 60%, chiefly, though not exclusively, through capital intensification (labour-capital substitution) and simplifying herd feeding practices (more concentrates used). The technical efficiency of beef sector production systems, as measured by the ratio of the volume value (in constant euros) of farm output excluding aids to volume of intermediate consumption, has fallen by nearly 20% while income per worker has held stable thanks to subsidies and the labour productivity gains made. This aggregate technical efficiency of beef cattle systems is positively correlated to feed self-sufficiency, which is in turn negatively correlated to farm and herd size. While volume of farm output per hectare of agricultural area has not changed, forage feed self-sufficiency decreased by 6 percentage points. The continual increase in farm size and labour productivity has come at a cost of lower production-system efficiency - a loss of technical efficiency that 20 years of genetic, technical, technological and knowledge-driven progress has barely managed to offset.

Efforts to assess the environmental performances of beef production systems often culminate in mitigation strategies without factoring in farm economics. The objective of this study was to co-assess the environmental impacts and economic performances of French suckler-beef production systems based on commercial farm data. We coordinated a technical-economic survey on 59 Charolais suckler-cattle farms in order to calculate GHG emissions and non-renewable energy (NRE) consumption over the years 2010 and 2011. Using real-world data from a farm network instead of modeled or experimental data enabled us to analyze the variability of the results and its determinants. The main variables impacting GHG emissions and NRE consumption per kg of beef (live weight) produced are (i) animal productivity (kg of live weight produced per LU), (ii) farm size (area and herd), and (iii) degree of specialization in beef production (share of cattle revenue in total farm revenue). The large, diversified farms (mixed crop-livestock farming systems) have a more negative environmental impact than the moderate-sized, specialized (beef production) farms. Animal productivity performances decrease with increasing herd size, and inputs use is below-optimal in the most strongly diversified farms. A comparison of the group of farms with the lowest and highest GHG emissions per kg beef (50% difference on GHG emissions per kg of live weight) confirmed these correlations. Through better animal productivity performances and lower use of inputs, the less-GHG-emitting farms also generate higher income per worker (+30%) while consuming less NRE. Our findings argue against the idea that size and diversification bring economic and environmental economies of scale and scope in suckler-beef production systems. (c) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Au cours des vingt dernières années, les réformes de la Politique Agricole Commune (PAC) se sont succédées avec, au départ, des aides attribuées en compensation de la baisse des prix garantis. Un soutien a été accordé aux élevages herbagers et/ou extensifs. Malgré cela, les revenus des exploitations d’élevages allaitants, bovins et ovins, sont restés, en moyenne, parmi les plus faibles de l’ensemble des exploitations agricoles françaises. Une des réponses à la PAC, mais également aux signaux du marché et aux aléas, a été un accroissement constant de la taille de ces exploitations et de la productivité du travail (de + 45 à + 60% en 20 ans selon les régions), accompagnée d’une simplification des pratiques, pour une quasi-stagnation des revenus par travailleur en euros constants. Ces observations réalisées sur le long terme, à partir des réseaux ovins et bovins allaitants de l’INRA de Clermont-Theix, amènent à se poser des questions sur les notions d’économie d’échelle, sur l’efficacité des systèmes de production et sur les évolutions futures des structures de ces exploitations.

Mixed crop–livestock (MC–L) farming has gained broad consensus as an economically and environmentally sustainable farming system. Working on a Charolais-area suckler cattle farms network, we subdivided the 66 farms of a constant sample, for 2 years (2010 and 2011), into four groups: (i) ‘specialized conventional livestock farms’ (100% grassland-based farms (GF), n=7); (ii) ‘integrated conventional crop–livestock farms’ (specialized farms that only market animal products but that grow cereal crops on-farm for animal feed, n=31); (iii) ‘mixed conventional crop–livestock farms’ (farms that sell beef and cereal crops to market, n=21); and (iv) organic farms (n=7). We analyse the differences in structure and in drivers of technical, economic and environmental performances. The figures for all the farms over 2 years (2010 and 2011) were pooled into a single sample for each group. The farms that sell crops alongside beef miss out on potential economies of scale. These farms are bigger than specialized beef farms (with or without on-farm feed crops) and all types of farms show comparable economic performances. The big MC–L farms make heavier and consequently less efficient use of inputs. This use of less efficient inputs also weakens their environmental performances. This subpopulation of suckler cattle farms appears unable to translate a MC–L strategy into economies of scope. Organic farms most efficiently exploit the diversity of herd feed resources, thus positioning organic agriculture as a prototype MC–L system meeting the core principles of agroecology.

Over the past twenty years the Common Agricultural Policy reforms succeeded one another with, initially, subsidies provided to compensate the erosion of farm meat prices. Support was given to grassland or extensive farming systems. Despite this, the farm income of these farms remained on average among the lowest of all French farms. One response to the CAP, but also to market signals and hazards, has been a constant increase in the size of farms and labor productivity (by 30-80% in 20 years according to the regions) accompanied by a simplification of practices, for a near stagnation in the net income per worker, in constant euros. These observations from sheep and suckler cattle networks over the long term from the INTRA Clermont-Theix lead to questions about the economies of scale concepts, and about the direction of future agricultural policies.