Farm Typology Research Articles

Vulnerability of Maize Farming Systems to Climate Change: Farmers’ Opinions Differ about the Relevance of Adaptation Strategies

Climate change has negative impacts on maize cultivation in southwestern France, such as soil erosion and water stress. The vulnerability of maize farming systems to climate change must be assessed before considering potential adaptation strategies. This study focused on eliciting and understanding criteria that maize growers use to assess the vulnerability of their farming systems to climate change. To this end, we surveyed maize growers in two consecutive stages: a qualitative stage, to elicit vulnerability criteria, and a quantitative stage, to test the genericity of criteria related to the adaptation strategies. The qualitative stage identified 144 criteria that farmers used to assess vulnerability to climate change, while the quantitative stage showed that farmers’ opinions about the adaptation strategies differed. Many factors explained these differences, including structural (e.g., soil type) and psychological factors (e.g., interest in agroecology). Our typology of farmers revealed that their interest in agroecology and technology, as well as their perceptions of the risks of climate change and their attachment to their production systems, influence the type of adaptations they identify as relevant (i.e., intensification strategies, slight adjustments or agroecological innovations). Farmers’ perceptions should be considered when providing individual advice and assessing vulnerability, by including criteria related to their psychological characteristics.

Farming Systems, Food Security and Farmers' Awareness of Ecosystem Services in Inland Valleys: A Study From Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana

Inland valleys (IVs) in West African countries have increasingly been used for crop production, including rice cultivation. Though it is widely assumed that IVs have a high potential to contribute to food security of West African countries, a comprehensive assessment of farming systems addressing agricultural, institutional, food security, poverty, and ecosystem indicators is still lacking. This study characterizes IVs' smallholder farm households at the regional and farm type level using Rural Household Multiple Indicator Survey (RHoMIS) data collected from 733 randomly selected farm households in four agro-ecological regions, i.e., Bouaké and Gagnoa in Cote d'Ivoire, and Ahafo Ano North and Ahafo Ano South in Ghana. A farm typology is developed, and farm households are characterized with regard to demographic, agricultural, economic, and institutional indicators. Furthermore, farm households' food security and poverty status, and the importance of rice in the portfolio of crops, is assessed. Finally, farmers' awareness of different ecosystem services (ES) for their food security is examined. Four farm types are identified, i.e., farmers who rent all the land cultivated, farmers who own some land and rent extra land, farmers who own and cultivate all their land, and farmers cultivating only a part of the land they own. We find that the variation in farm households' demographic, economic, and institutional characteristics is greater between regions than within regions. Crop production, either for direct consumption or marketing, especially rice production, is the main contributor to daily energy intake, followed by wild food consumed. Still, a substantial percentage of the farm households (16–38%) in all regions cannot meet minimum daily energy requirements. Farmers of all farm types, and in all regions, attach high relevance to IVs' provisioning ES, particularly the ability to provide food. A majority of farmers in all regions highlighted the relevance of regulating ES, including climate regulation, water storage, and groundwater values for their wellbeing. In contrast, farmers attached relatively lower relevance to cultural ES. Interventions to improve national rice production need to acknowledge and preserve the diversity ES that IVs provide to smallholder farm households.

Typology and status of cattle farms using artificial insemination in Burkina Faso

Typology and status of cattle farms using artificial insemination in Burkina Faso

Typological analysis of farming systems diversity and performance: A case study of Southern Tunisia

In Tunisian arid regions, farming systems are increasingly exposed to quick environmental and socio-economic changes, which may reduce their performance and resilience. This paper seeks to assess the performance of farming systems in the district of Sidi Makhlouf (Southeast of Tunisia) considering their diversity. Thus, a typology of farms based on data from the 2004-2005 structure surveys was developed using multidimensional analyzes and the expert method. Multidimensional analyzes have identified three groups of farms: “Rain-fed olive farms”, “Irrigated farms”, and “Livestock farms”. Representative farms were chosen by local agricultural experts to conduct an in-depth analysis of the identified groups. Then, two field surveys were performed with the chosen farmers. Characterization and analysis of homogeneous "reference farm groups" confirm their socioeconomic and technical performance diversity, according to the capital endowment and the strategies implemented by farmers. These results suggest that agricultural policies and interventions should be targeted to strengthen performances and to respond to the specific contexts of each farms’ group.

Groundwater irrigation reduces overall poverty but increases socioeconomic vulnerability in a semiarid region of southern India

The development of irrigation is generally considered an efficient way to reduce poverty in rural areas, although its impact on the inequality between farmers is more debated. In fact, assessing the impact of water management on different categories of farmers requires resituating it within the different dimensions of the local socio-technical context. We tested this hypothesis in a semi-arid area in Karnataka, South India, where groundwater irrigation was introduced five decades ago. Using the conceptual framework of comparative agriculture, based on farmers’ interviews, we built a farm typology, traced the trajectories of farm types over the last decades and assessed their current technical and economic performances. Our results show that the differentiation of farm trajectories since the 1950s has been linked with the development of groundwater irrigation, interplaying with their initial assets, and the evolution of the national and local contexts. We highlight the mechanisms by which irrigation indeed reduces poverty but engenders fragilities, particularly for poor households, whose situation was aggravated by the depletion of water resources over the last two decades. Finally, this extensive understanding of the agrarian context allowed us to formulate and assess the potential of different ways forward, including irrigation technology, change in cropping or livestock systems, land tenure, and value added distribution. As such, this analysis would be of major interest to policy makers involved in reforming the agricultural context for better agricultural water management.

Diversity in smallholder dairy production systems in the Brazilian semiarid region: Farm typologies and characteristics of raw milk and water used in milking

Smallholder dairy farms (SDF) producers are being challenged by market demands combined with competition and limited access to productive and market inputs, contributing for reducing its participation in the dairy activity. Thus a sustainability assessment for SDF development is necessary, opening the opportunity for recognizing the diversity between production systems. Farm typologies are often used for this purpose. The objective was to develop a typological analysis of the smallholder dairy farms in the Brazilian semiarid region and evaluate characteristics of raw milk and water used in milking. A semi-structured questionnaire containing social, physical, livestock, herd management, technological, productive, and economic indicators with 49 variables was applied in 28 SDF. Of these, 23 were selected, and collections of milk and water used for milking management were performed. Three multivariate analysis techniques were used: exploratory factor analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, and canonical discriminant analysis. Three production systems have been identified: Conventional system: Mature illiterate and rural farmers, small herds and farms, low technological level, less intensive management, and low milk production with in nature marketing (15 farms; 53.6%); Traditional system: Mature farmers with basic education, farms managed with hired labor, large herds and areas, extensive management, low technological level, high production of milk for the manufacture of cheese (6 farms; 21.43%); and Emerging system: Young farmers with a high level of education, small herds and farms, intensive management, intermediate technological level, and high milk production and productivity with in nature marketing (7 farms; 25.0%). The social, physical, livestock, herd management and technological, and productive indicators showed discriminatory power (P < 0.05) to differentiate the typologies. Milk and water traits were similar (P > 0.05) among the production systems. The average values of the milk composition are in the threshold of the Brazilian legislation, unlike the somatic cell count (CSS) and standard plate count (SPC). Antibiotic residue was not found in milk from any SDF.The water used in milking management was characterized by high counts of aerobic mesophilic bacteria and total and thermotolerant coliforms, hard water, and neutral pH. For the continuity of SDF in the Brazilian semiarid, it is essential (i) participation of young people in the sector; (ii) feed planning for the dry period; (iii) herd health calendar according to legislation; (iv) water treatment (chlorination) and use of alkaline detergent for use in milking management, and (v) formal marketing of milk and its derivatives. Finally, our results can be used to inform and support public decision-makers responsible for the formulation and implementation of livestock development policy in the Brazilian semiarid region and being useful for other drylands.

Agricultural clusters and poverty in municipalities in the Northeast Region of Brazil: A spatial perspective

This article evaluated the spatial distribution of agricultural activity in the municipalities of the Northeast Region of Brazil, relating it to the characteristics of this activity that can increase, alleviate or perpetuate poverty conditions, including elements that capture spatial dependence. For this purpose, data from the 2017 Agricultural Census were used. In addition, these data were disaggregated by typology of family farming, emphasizing the delimitation of poor and extremely poor rural producers categorized in the so-called Group B of the National Program for Strengthening Family Farming (PRONAF), in addition to the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA). The results indicate that, despite the Northeast Region having the largest number of establishments and employed persons in the Brazilian Agricultural sector, there is a marked internal differentiation. Family farming is dominant, but it has the smallest amount of land and production value. Furthermore, in the family segment, there is a predominance of poor and extremely poor producers allocated in Group B of PRONAF, who have little access to technologies and sources of financing and a low degree of association. In addition, most of the establishments in Group B of PRONAF have their self-consumption as their main production purpose, with the income obtained from the activities carried out in the establishment being predominantly lower than the income from other sources. In addition to the income generated by the establishment's production, income from retirement and pension resources and from government programs stands out. Furthermore, the ESDA made it possible to identify: possible spatial inequalities; municipalities with low values of the analyzed parameters, with neighbors whose average of the parameters is also low; and agglomerations potentially inducing economic development, through integration and local complementarity, provided by the concentration of productive activity.

Designing scenarios for upscaling climate-smart agriculture on a small tropical island

CONTEXTClimate smart agriculture (CSA) is proposed to meet the major challenges of feeding nine billion people by 2050, adapting systems to climate change and mitigating anthropogenic GHG emissions. These challenges are salient in tropical island regions that are particularly vulnerable. While many technical solutions based on agroecology and bioeconomy have been proposed to promote CSA, there is little work on the issue of barriers to the transition towards such systems, which remains slow. There is a need to develop methods to model possible futures to cope with the imposed constraints of climate change and to identify relevant agronomic and policy levers to achieve this goal. OBJECTIVEA methodological framework was proposed to design scenarios for upscaling CSA, which was applied in Guadeloupe. METHODSThe multi-scale and transdisciplinary framework consists of five steps: farm typology building, diagnosis of farming systems from a survey on a sample of farms, design of a prototype of climate-smart farming system, field experimenting, and modeling scenarios to identify levers that can reach the CSA objectives at the regional level under future climate conditions. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSWhile new agricultural systems based on agroecology and bioeconomy have the potential to reduce the impacts of climate change, mitigate GHGs, and increase food autonomy, results revealed that many lock-in effects have to be relaxed, increasing workforce availability at the regional scale, reorientating public incentives towards agroecological systems, increasing profitability of CSA products, improving the work efficiency of farmers, and reducing their risk aversion. In the best scenario designed, the potential impact of climate hazards was reduced by 12.5%, the nutritional performance at the regional scale was tripled with 6.0 fed people/ha/yr, the GHG balance switched from net emissions to a sequestration of 0.7 tCO2eq/ha/yr, while the labor productivity rose to $26.5/h (+14%). Compared to that of the baseline situation, the public cost for mitigating 1 tCO2eq was $432. SIGNIFICANCENew ambitious policies targeting farmers' constraints are required to increase CSA. There is a need to develop more stakeholder platforms in which all issues and possible levers are discussed, and transition scenarios are co-designed. The approach proposed herein can be used to feed discussions on such platforms. Research must be continued in the “redesign” field to model transition in a dynamic way, given the uncertainty of many crucial aspects such as climate change scenarios, market evolution, technical progress in agroecology, and farmers' behavior.

The use of mobile phones and the heterogeneity of banana farmers in Rwanda

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) play a key role in improving agricultural production, enhancing socio-ecological resilience, and mitigating rural poverty. However, the use of ICTs for agricultural development among smallholder farmers, especially in the least developed countries, still lags behind. It is therefore critical to understand distinct attitudes among heterogeneous smallholder farmers that determine use of ICTs, such as mobile phones. Moreover, data-driven empirical studies on the use of mobile phones in smallholder settings are still scarce. We bridge this knowledge gap by evaluating the link between the use of mobile phones and various farming types of smallholder farmers in Rwanda. Using the principal component and cluster analysis, we analyzed 690 banana farming households across eight of the 10 major agro-ecological zones of Rwanda and developed a typology of banana farms. We identified three distinct farm types based on a combination of various farmer characteristics and farm operations and endowments, namely the beer banana, livestock-based, and the cooking banana farm types. These farm types clearly differ in terms of ownership and use of both basic and smart mobile devices. Farmers in the cooking banana farm type are far more likely to own and use smart mobile phones than in other types. Regression results further indicated that farm type, gender, and education have significant correlations with the perceived usefulness of mobile phones in agriculture. Major barriers to using ICT-based agricultural services were 1) low awareness of the existence of ICT services, 2) limited availability of ICT services, 3) lack of technical know-how, 4) relatively high prices of ICT devices, and 5) low levels of ICT literacy. This empirical study provides strategically important insights for the transition to digital agriculture in the context of smallholder farming systems.

Potato farming in Southwestern Colombia: Types of farmers, technical efficiency and recommendations for the sector’s strengthening

Potato is a traditional and economically important crop for farmers in the high mountains of Nariño (Colombia). However, its productivity growth is weakening, injuring farmers’ livelihoods. We hypothesize that an in-depth study of farm typologies and their relationship with productive efficiency could prove helpful in delivering recommendations for sector improvement. With a representative sample of 1,018 farmers, this research used cluster methods to identify representative types of farming and then a stochastic frontier model to build a measure of potato production efficiency. Finally, it analyzed how technical efficiency behaves across the calculated types of farming. Results suggested that four kinds of farming describe potato production in Nariño: micro, small, medium, and large-scale. Most farmers are of the micro (71.8 %) and small scale (23.8 %), and their conditions are unfavorable in terms of access to technical assistance, credit, and improved production practices. Although these farmers report an average efficiency of 79 % and 85 %, respectively, there is still an opportunity for improvement. We close with a brief discussion that focuses on suggestions for future policy or research advances around these farmers.

Farm Typology for Targeting Extension Interventions Among Smallholders in Tribal Villages in Jharkhand State of India

The highly heterogeneous and complex farm holdings operated by the smallholders in developing countries are often deprived of optimum production and profitability. The farming systems in the state of Jharkhand, India, are heterogeneous due to biophysical (e.g., climatic conditions, fertilizer status, elevation, etc.) and socio-economic (investment potential, production goals, income preferences) factors. The extension interventions to reach the smallholders often face the one-size-fits-all approach making farming less attractive with diminished potential. There is a need to understand the diversity of the farms to classify them into different homogenous groups after studying the nature and characteristics of the farm and operators on the farms. In the current study, twenty-one different variables related to socio-economic,biophysical and geospatial features of the farms from 394 farm households were used for the analysis using Principal Component Analysis to identify six principal components explaining 73.07% of the total variability in the dataset. The first six factors were further analyzed using Euclidean Distance as distance measure and Ward’s technique as agglomerative clustering to form four clusters that were found to represent the farm households in the three villages. The four farm types identified were, Type 1. Large farm household with a diversification of crops and intensification of labour (22%), Type 2. Small farm households with major income from livestock (9%), Type 3. Small farm households with diversified cropping system and income from other sources (17%), and Type 4. Small farm households with monocropping dominated by senior farmers with an additional source of income (51%). The validation of the clusters was undertaken through qualitative methods such as focused group discussions and participatory workshops. The findings back up previous research that showed a positive association between farmer categorization and mathematical classification. The study offers a verifiable scientific methodology that could help scale agricultural technologies by forming a specific cluster of farmers based on their characteristics. The technologies applied to various farm types would be helpful to the extension system to target the interventions among the precise members of the identified farm types. Thus, the study suggests the farming system typology based on socio-economic, biophysical and geospatial factors for targeted farming systems interventions among smallholders.

Typology of Farmers' Behavior and Attitudes towards Occupational Health in Agriculture, Kermanshah province

Typology of Farmers' Behavior and Attitudes towards Occupational Health in Agriculture, Kermanshah province

Exploring farmers' adaptation strategies to water shortage under climate change in the Tunisian semi-arid region.

This study explores the adaptation strategies to water shortage at the farm level in the Tunisian semi-arid region and investigates factors determining the farmers' behavior. In this area, climate change exacerbates the scarcity of water resources, groundwater suffers from saline intrusion, and the reinforcement of surface water depends on the water transfer decision. Based on 81 farmers survey data collected in Diar El Hajjaj irrigated area, the typology of farmers was constructed using the multivariate technique combining the clustering method and principal component analysis.The results show that two groups of the surveyed farmers use more intensive water resources to grow high-value crops and operate toward a commercial farming system. They set up either an accommodating or an expansive plan. The remaining sampled farmers are smallholder farmers who endure critical resource constraints. They tend to adopt a contractive strategy and face a real risk of farming abandonment. Additional actions should be taken at the farm level as well at the national policy level to preserve the farming system under water scarcity due to climate change effects.

Manure as waste and food as feed: Environmental challenges on Chinese dairy farms

Rapid intensification and decoupling of animal and crop production have contributed to high nutrient losses to the environment from Chinese dairy farms and increasing food–feed competition. This study therefore aimed to understand nutrient management and food–feed competition on Chinese dairy farms. We used bottom-up data from a farm survey amongst 48 dairy farms in Henan, north-central China, between October and December 2020. Herd sizes ranged from 115 to 4289 heads, and 52% of the farms had no cropland or grassland. Farm characteristics were determined to quantify nitrogen and phosphorus flows on dairy farms. Subsequently, nutrient use efficiencies and human-edible protein conversion ratios (HePCR) were calculated and compared amongst farm typologies. We found that Chinese dairy farms largely rely on imported feed and are decoupled from crop production. On-farm croplands play a minor role in feed supply but are overloaded with cattle manure. Average nitrogen and phosphorus use efficiencies at farm level were 20% and 27%, respectively. The HePCR varied from 1.0 to 3.5, with an average of 2.3, indicating that food–feed competition commonly occurs. Farms with higher milk yields and moderate concentrate use performed better in nutrient use efficiencies and HePCR. This inefficient utilisation of nutrients highlights the urgency for developing farm-level guidelines of nutrient management that acknowledge farm differences. Our findings provide insights from both manure- and feed-management perspectives, which could help policy makers to support dairy farms to become more environmentally friendly and contribute to a circular food system.

Analysis of milk production and greenhouse gas emissions as a function of extreme variations in forage production among French dairy farms

Many studies that investigate mitigation strategies of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions from farming systems often build farm typologies from average data from multiple farms. Results from farm typologies are useful for general purposes but fail to represent variability in farm characteristics due to management practices or climate conditions, particularly when considering consequences of extreme environmental events. This limitation raises the issue of better distinguishing, within datasets of farms, farms that have average characteristics from those that deviate from average trends, in order to improve assessment of how climate variability influences farm performance. We applied the statistical method called Extreme Value Theory (EVT) to identify dairy farms that produced “extreme” amounts of forage. Applying EVT to a dataset of dairy farms from Normandy, Lorraine and Nord-Pas-de-Calais (France) identified subsamples of 10–30% of dairy farms with the smallest or largest amounts of grass from pastures or maize silage in each region. Characteristics of farms with extreme amounts of each forage often differed among regions due to the influence of geography and climate. Farms with the largest amounts of grass or the smallest amounts of maize silage had a variety of cow breeds in Normandy and Lorraine but had only Holstein cows in Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Conversely, most farms with the smallest amounts of grass or the largest amounts of maize silage had Holstein cows, regardless of region. The region also influenced whether farms were oriented more toward producing milk with higher fat and protein contents (Normandy and Lorraine) or toward producing larger amounts of milk (Nord-Pas-de-Calais). As the amount of a given forage changed from smallest to largest, a significant increase or decrease in the amount of milk produced usually changed GHG and enteric methane (CH4) emissions per farm in the same direction as the amount of milk produced. For instance, an extreme increase in the amount of grass fed on farms (1314 vs. 5093 kg/livestock unit/year, respectively) in Normandy was associated with decreased mean milk production (8236 vs. 5834 l/cow/year, respectively) and GHG (7117 vs. 5587 kg CO2 eq./farm/year) and enteric CH4 (3870 vs. 3296 kg CO2 eq./farm/year, respectively) emissions.

Farm typology of smallholders integrated farming systems in Southern Coastal Plains of Kerala, India

Adoption of an integrated farming system (IFS) is essential to achieve food and nutritional security in small and marginal holdings. Assessment of IFS to know the resource availability and socio-economic condition of the farm household, farm typology plays a critical role. In this regard, a sample survey of 200 marginal households practicing mixed crop-livestock agriculture was conducted during 2018–2019 at Southern Coastal Plains, which occupies 19,344 ha in Thiruvananthapuram district, Kerala, India. Farming system typology using multivariate statistical techniques of principal component analysis and cluster analysis characterized the diverse farm households coexisting within distinct homogenous farm types. Farming system typology identified four distinct farm types viz. resource constrained type-1 households with small land owned, high abundance of poultry, very low on-farm income, constituted 46.5%; resource endowed type-2 households oriented around fruit and vegetable, plantation crop, with a moderate abundance of large ruminant and poultry, high on-farm income, constituted 12.5%; resource endowed type-3 household oriented around food grain, extensive use of farm machinery, with a moderate abundance of large ruminant, low on-farm income, constituted 21.5%; and resource endowed type-4 household oriented around fodder, with high abundance of large ruminant, medium on-farm income, constituted 19.5% of sampled households. Constraint analysis using constraint severity index assessed the severity of constraints in food grain, horticulture, livestock, complementary and supplementary enterprises in each farm type, which allowed targeted farming systems interventions to be envisaged to overcome soil health problems, crops and animal production constraints. Farming system typology together with constraint analysis are therefore suggested as a practical framework capable of identifying type-specific farm households for targeted farming systems interventions.

ТИПОЛОГИЯ ЛИЧНЫХ ПОДСОБНЫХ ХОЗЯЙСТВ ПО ДАННЫМ ВСЕРОССИЙСКОЙ СЕЛЬСКОХОЗЯЙСТВЕННОЙ ПЕРЕПИСИ 2016 Г.

The paper presents the results of the study, the aim of which is to develop a typology of subsidiary farms to study by type of labor force. The subject of the study is a system of statistical indicators; the object is a set of subsidiary farms in three regions with different agro-climatic conditions. The informational basis of the work was the impersonal data of the 2016All-Russian Agricultural Census on subsidiary farms engaged in agricultural production. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the development of the typology of subsidiary farms using multidimensional statistical method of cluster analysis, its validation, and description of types using a system of indicators of size, intensification and specialization of agricultural production. Three groups of subsidiary farms with reliable differences among themselves were identified in all three regions. The differences in the availability of labor resources according to the highlighted types were proven, but the available system of indicators does not allow for an in-depth analysis, as the census data do not contain information even on labor inputs. The study showed that the third cluster in all three regions studied is represented mainly by farms that are essentially no longer subsidiary farms, which indicates the need to revise the approach to the presentation of statistical data on agriculture in terms of the categories of farms. Agricultural products of the first and second types of subsidiary farms do not enter the market, have no market value, when conducting agricultural censuses in order to reduce costs and expand the program it is worth returning to the study of the introduction of census, as done in the European Union, USA and other countries with developed economies.

Understanding and promoting adoption of irrigation efficiency practices in Paso Robles, California vineyards: The importance of farm typology and grower sustainability networks

Groundwater depletion and water scarcity are significant global risks facing humanity. Improved irrigation efficiency is a key strategy for achieving sustainable management of groundwater resources. In 2021, we surveyed vineyard managers in the Paso Robles (California) American Viticultural Area, assessing the level of, and barriers to, adoption of six irrigation efficiency best management practices (BMPs). BMP adoption was relatively low overall, with the use of flow meters most widespread (55%) and plant tissue sampling to schedule irrigation least prevalent (32%). Financial expense to implement and manage was the most cited barrier and UC Cooperative Extension was the most trusted information source for water management concerns. There was a clear relationship between BMP adoption and the vineyard and vineyard manager characteristics included in the study. Participation in Sustainability in Practice (SIP) certification and its related grower-to-grower network activities emerged as the single most important determinant of BMP adoption. A vineyard typology of three types (small, medium and large-scale) was also constructed to understand the relationship between BMP adoption, vineyard type and other vineyard and vineyard manager characteristics. There were sharp differences between vineyard types in BMP adoption, barriers to adoption, and trusted information sources. The analysis concludes with targeted outreach recommendations to improve BMP adoption that include financial and technical assistance. Our approach of assessing adoption, characterizing barriers, identifying opportunities, and formulating an outreach strategy informed by farm typology is relevant to other irrigated agricultural regions facing water scarcity and groundwater depletion and could be extended to other irrigation BMPs as well as to other crops.

Protecting the Identity of Sheep-Farming Landscapes in the Outer Carpathians: A Typology, Delimitation, and Interpretation

The article sets out to identify, delimit, and interpret the sheep-farming landscapes of Wallachian origin that lie within the area of medium and low mountain ranges of the Outer Carpathians and that share a uniform geological and morphological structure (the Flysch Carpathians). The subjects of the research are the mid-forest clearings and the farm buildings erected on them, which form a specific type of landscape on which sheep farming has identifiable impacts. The article is an attempt to elaborate a typology of sheep farming and the mixed pastoral/agricultural, sheltering and sheep-farming (Polish: <i>polaniarskie</i>) landscapes of the subecumene zone based on the structure and function of the economic activity on those landscapes. Sheepfarming landscapes are those shaped by the pastoral-agricultural economy in the mountain regions of the Carpathians. The study responds to the need to interpret areas and forms of sheep farming with the aim of protecting not only the unique heritage of the Wallachian shepherds’ lifestyle and culture but also the landscapes resulting from the European Landscape Convention (October 20, 2000). These landscapes are disappearing rapidly due to the unprofitability of rearing livestock, and they are becoming relics and being absorbed through natural forest succession. Preserving the practices and unique history and culture of Carpathian sheep-farming landscapes, including those in the Outer Carpathians, will allow for the protection of not only the landscapes’ identity but also the heritage of the Wallachian highlanders and their biodiverse high alpine meadows. In line with innovative ethnographic research methods, the study’s first stage consisted of taking stock of sheep-farming areas by combining cartographic materials supported by remote sensing with source materials collected through interviews with living witnesses of sheepfarming practices. Sheep-farming landscapes within the Outer Carpathians have a complex historical and cultural structure strongly linked to its current socioeconomic situation. Yet, the sheep-farming landscape of this mountain region has yet to be defined architecturally and physiognomically as a type of rural agricultural landscape. With the aim of promoting the preservation of the region’s sheep-farming landscapes, the article presents its complex structure and function, along with the conditions needed to maintain it. The abandonment of mid-forest clearings would have implications beyond sheep-farming landscapes: it would also result in a lack of viewing opportunities within the mountain landscape, resulting in a loss of beauty and visual value that would impact the status of the Carpathians as a priority landscape.

Typology of agricultural farms in the South-East of Algerian Sahara: the case of Zelfana oasis

In Algerian Saharan, oases are characterized by the fragility of the ecosystem and degradation of microclimate, which covers most of the Algerian oasis, where the climate change is adversely affecting the society of the developing countries because their livelihoods rely mainly on climate-dependent activities, whether agricultural or economic. Zelfana is one of the thirteen oases that encompass the region of Ghardaia (Algerian Sahara); it is part of the territory of the Châamba. This oasis characterized for the past two decades by phoenicicole farms knows strong socio-economic and cultural mutations that have strongly influenced the agricultural sector for several decades. The main purpose of the paper aims to understand this diversity and define the characteristics of the farms, which rely on a structural typology for Treatment data by MAC - Multiple Correspondence Analysis under SPSS. After that, we determine the number of classes corresponding to the types of agricultural farms. Based on the most discriminating variables, we cleared the characteristics of each farm type. From this study, we determined the more discriminating variables include the professional identity of the farmer, the importance of farms, seniority, location, size of the farm, and the dominant culture. Clustering indicates five types of farms, namely: ancient irrigated farms (small gardens and Palm grove (CAPER)), the improved farms, small new farms, and at last the medium and large farms.