Abstract
The concepts of ‘forage functioning’ and ‘field function’ were developed to analyse grassland utilization within the overall management of farms. This approach enabled us to identify functional relations between the main farm components: fields with their agronomic characteristics, field pattern structure, and the whole farm viewed from the angle of forage production management and utilization by the herd. Presentation of the concepts and method is followed by an assessment of method validity tested on two types of farm operation in the French Northern Alps. The conceptual model provides a synthetic representation which explains field utilization within the general production objective of the farm. We chose a formalization process that keeps close to the farmer's practices and their justification of them. The resulting diagnosis may help better adjust decisions to the diversity of situations through dialogue between the farmer and the farm adviser.
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