Mixed Crop-Livestock Beef Production: A Sustainable Beef Production System? Farm-Scale Results, Questions and Perspectives

In this paper, we examine 66 Charolais suckler-cattle farms in central France to evaluate whether mixed crop-livestock farming offers sustainable beef production at the farm scale. We classify farms into specialized beef, conventional mixed crop-livestock, and organic mixed crop-livestock systems. We compare their structure, input use, herd feed strategies, economic performance, and environmental impacts based on a comprehensive dataset including technical and financial indicators. Results show that conventional mixed farms used inputs less efficiently and did not realize economies of scope, resulting in lower economic and environmental efficiency. Conversely, organic mixed farms exploited diverse feed resources more effectively, positioning them as a prototype for agroecological beef production.