Binding Constraints in Castile-La Mancha, Spain's Cereal-Sheep System

Abstract

Low-input and large scale grazing systems (LSGS) in Europe are at a crossroads and are facing two contrasting threats: intensification and abandonment (the most extreme form of extensification). Paradoxically, these LSGS constitute large tracts of European rural land in the less favored areas (LFA), which harbor a great part of high nature value (HNV) farmland. Natural and cultural values depend on continuity of the traditional farming practices and this on the social and economic sustainability of the respective farming systems. In this report, we argue that understanding the social dynamic and main binding constraints of particular LSGS is a precedent to institutional reforms and devising sensible schemes of policy support. A community-based research approach with stakeholders' participation was devised within the EU-funded LACOPE research project and applied to five European LSGS. A more structured approach with three phases of the diagnostic methodology and corresponding data is presented for the cereal-sheep farming system of Castile-La Mancha (South-Central Spain). Comparative data are presented for other four European LSGS: the reindeer herding in northernmost Fennoscandia (Northern Sapmi); sheep grazing in the Carpathian (Tatra) mountains of Poland; and heifers' rearing on the Alps in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Entlebuch (Switzerland) and Upper Bavaria (Germany). Results in the cereal-sheep systems showed congenial views (social consensus) on the main constraints between the two principal stakeholders, but uncooperative attitudes and lack for social cohesion. Comparative results indicated a common ground of abandonment of the less-favored and far-reaching grazing areas with causes related to inter-Scandinavian border barriers (Northern Sapmi), intensification of more-favored lowland farms (Entlebuch and Upper Bavaria) and lack of social cohesion and structural constraints (Tatra and Castile-La Mancha). A social sustainability tier should be included into the Rural Development guidelines of the EU for actions in HNV farmland, but regional strategy plans should be adapted to particular social dynamic of European LSGS.