The concept of flexibility and the analysis of livestock farming systems: illustration using extensive beef cattle systems in Argentina

摘要

Livestock farmers are faced with increasingly serious and diverse uncertainties. The way in which farmers take these uncertainties into account for the management of their farms becomes an essential element in analyzing and evaluating farming systems.We suggest that the concept of flexibility, often used by economics and management sciences in the business world, provides useful keys to analyze the capacity of the farms to adapt to changes in the environment. We illustrate the interest of this concept by analyzing how beef cattle farmers in Argentina (Pampa Deprimida Region) face three types of uncertainties: health problems associated with summer grazing (Enteque seco), commercialization problems, and great disruptions in the economic balance of the farms.