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Sustainability is a complex, multi-dimensional issue that requires contributions from diverse disciplines, perspectives, and actors. Research and innovation are recognised as having the potential to help address some of the trade-offs and synergies associated with sustainability, and interactive innovation in particular offers many advantages. The beef sector has faced significant sustainability challenges in recent times, with criticisms relating to greenhouse gas (GHG) production, biodiversity, water quality, human health, and animal welfare, along with economic challenges to the viability of the sector. Furthermore, the low level of adoption of solutions proposed by research to address these challenges indicates the need for a pan-European multi-actor network to produce actionable and usable information to support European beef farmers. Drawing on practice-based research, the purpose of this exploratory paper was to examine how interactive innovation can be supported in a sector that, to date, has been the focus of limited interactive innovation efforts. It concluded that a “rainbow” of actors and diverse knowledges, along with different types of innovation intermediaries, can enhance the sustainability of the beef sector.

As mudanças no ambiente económico, que derivam do fenómeno da globalização, inovação e novos meios de comunicação, fazem com que as empresas tenham que estar preparadas para uma realidade que se começa a tornar imperativa nos dias de hoje, a internacionalização. Devido à sua dimensão e rápido crescimento, a internacionalização é alvo de renovação do interesse cientifico e da realização de novos estudos com diferentes vertentes do tema. A vertente deste processo relacionada com as empresas familiares tem ganho maior relevância nos últimos anos devido à importância que estas detêm na economia global e às características específicas que possuem. Com base nisso, esta dissertação pretende analisar, através de um estudo de caso, o processo de internacionalização de uma empresa familiar da Região Autónoma dos Açores, que é considerada uma região com o estatuto de ultraperificidade. A empresa escolhida é a Resulbrave, uma pequena empresa de um dos setores com maior peso na economia da região, o setor da carne bovina. The changes in the economic environment resulting from globalization, innovation and new media mean that companies need to be prepared for a reality that is becoming imperative, the internationalization. Due to its size and rapid growth, internationaization is the subject of renewed scientific interest and new studies with different aspects of the theme. The aspect of this process related to family firms has gained more relevance in recent years due to the importance they have in the global economy and the specific characteristics they have. Based on the fact, this dissertation intends to analyse, through a case study, the internationalization process of a family firm in the Autonomous Region of the Azores, which is a region considered to be on the outermost status. The company chosen is Resulbrave, a small sized company from one of the largest sectors in the region’s economy, the beef sector.

National audience; This conference, conducted as part of an INRA PHASE department seminar, was to highlight the main economic trajectories of animal productions in France. It aimed to identify the strengths and weaknesses of French productions face their competitive environment (european and worldwide).; Cette conférence, réalisée dans le cadre d'un séminaire du département PHASE de l'INRA, avait pour objectif de mettre en évidence les principales trajectoires économiques des filières animales en France. Elle visait à identifier les forces et faiblesses des productions françaises face à leur univers concurrentiel, tant communautaire qu'international.

Impact of milk quota abolition and the market contraction for young steers in Europe on the french cattle sector. France has the largest cattle herd in Europe, with a proportion of dairy cows slightly lower than that of suckled cows. Since the 70’s, it has established a trade of young steers with Italy and Spain, but the French cattle sector is now faced with a contraction of the European demand for young steers and must adapt to the abolition of milk quotas on the 1st of April 2015. All actors of the French cattle sector are faced with new challenges : the fate of suckling calves, the localization of production, and the provisioning of French industrial tools., La France dispose du plus important cheptel bovin en Europe, avec une proportion de vaches laitières légèrement inférieure à celle de vaches allaitantes. Depuis les années 1970, elle a construit des flux d’exportations d’animaux maigres, les broutards, vers l’Italie et l’Espagne. mais la filière bovine française est actuellement confrontée à une contraction de la demande européenne de bovins maigres et doit s’adapter à la suppression des quotas laitiers le 1er avril 2015. L’ensemble des acteurs de la filière doit donc faire face à de nouveaux enjeux : le devenir des veaux allaitants français, la localisation de la production et l’approvisionnement des outils industriels français., Tregaro Yves. La filière bovine française dans le contexte de la suppression des quotas laitiers et de la contraction du marché Européen des bovins maigres. In: Bulletin de l'Académie Vétérinaire de France tome 164 n°3, 2011. pp. 225-236.

International audience; The role of livestock production within the European society has changed much in recent years. In the future, this change is set to continue not only for the beef supply chains (competitiveness) but also for animal research: new strategies and revised objectives are necessary to meet the challenges. The demand for animal products including meat is increasing, notably in developing countries. In the 27 Member States of the EU, beef production declines slowly and the trade balance has been negative since 2003. The quantity of beef meat will remain closely linked to the dynamics of the dairy sector (number of dairy cows), public policies and price relationships between crop and livestock production. The context in which beef is produced has changed considerably over time. Some issues (e.g., animal welfare, protection of the environment, pasture-based systems) concern not only cattle but also all types of ruminants. Recent developments in animal genetics and genomics will help to investigate the regulation of phenotypic variation in livestock, including the variation in sustainability traits such as efficiency of nutrient use, emissions (nitrogen, phosphorus, and greenhouse gas), health, product quality, and most important, robustness. Research should be targeted at practical issues, for instance the development of predictive approaches for the development of precision livestock farming, which has proven to be efficient at increasing, step by step, the efficiency of production and consequently competitiveness of the beef supply chain. Focusing on efficiency of nutrition is also an important challenge to limit the production cost and to reduce potentially harmful emissions such as carbon, methane, or nitrogen (this suggests notably to improve our knowledge of forage intake and digestion). There is also an increasing demand to evaluate feeds based on multiple criteria including nutrition, product quality, animal health and welfare, traceability, and sustainability. Due to the scarcity of natural resources, we should analyze in more details the performance of livestock systems based on pasture, while studying the ecological footprint of animals.; Le rôle des productions animales au sein de la société européenne a déjà beaucoup évolué au cours des dernières années. A l’avenir, les changements devraient se poursuivre non seulement au niveau de la filière bovine (compétitivité), mais aussi au niveau des champs de recherche : de nouvelles stratégies et des objectifs révisés doivent être fixés pour relever les défis du futur. La demande pour les produits d'origine animale (dont la viande) est en augmentation, notamment dans les pays en développement. Dans les 27 Etats membres de l'Union européenne, la production bovine diminue lentement et la balance commerciale est négative depuis 2003. La quantité de viande bovine produite restera étroitement liée à la dynamique du secteur laitier (effectif de vaches laitières), aux politiques publiques et aux rapports de prix entre les productions végétales et les productions animales. Le contexte dans lequel la viande bovine est produite a considérablement changé au fil du temps. Certaines questions (comme par exemple le bien-être animal, la protection de l'environnement, les systèmes basés sur les pâturages) ne concernent pas seulement les bovins mais aussi tous les types de ruminants. Les développements récents en génétique animale et en génomique permettent d'étudier la régulation de la variation phénotypique, y compris la variation des caractères de durabilité tels que l'efficacité de l'utilisation des nutriments, les émissions (azote, phosphore et de gaz à effet de serre), la santé, la qualité du produit et la robustesse. Des recherches devraient être ciblées sur des questions pratiques, par exemple le développement d'approches prédictives pour le développement de l'élevage de précision, qui a prouvé son efficacité à augmenter, étape par étape, l'efficacité de la production et par conséquent la compétitivité de la filière bovine. Une recherche centrée sur l'efficacité alimentaire constitue également un enjeu important pour limiter les coûts de production et pour réduire les émissions potentiellement nocives telles que le carbone, le méthane, ou l'azote (cela implique d’améliorer notre connaissance sur l'ingestion et la digestion des fourrages). Il existe aussi une demande croissante pour évaluer les aliments en fonction de critères multiples, dont la nutrition, la qualité des produits, la santé animale, le bien-être, la traçabilité et la durabilité. En raison de la raréfaction des ressources naturelles, il convient d’analyser plus en profondeur la performance des élevages basés sur le pâturage, tout en étudiant l'empreinte écologique des animaux.

Beef and pig production are important sectors affected by the cross-compliance policy. Full compliance with SMRs and GAECs generates costs and benefits which may have an impact on the competitiveness of these sectors on the world market. Compliance with the Nitrate Directive, animal identification and registration requirements and animal welfare standards can give rise to non-negligible cost of production increases at individual farm level and at sector level. Additional costs can be relevant either due to a low degree of compliance or by significant adjustments costs at farm level. Full compliance generates a level playing field between Member States of the EU, as some countries have to face higher additional costs than others, which are be attributed to differences in degree of compliance. This paper first presents evidence of additional costs at individual farm level due to full compliance. Then for beef and pork a methodology has been developed in order to calculate sector cost impacts following an upcsaling procedure for each of the analysed directives. Simulations with the GTAP model have enabled an assessment of the trade effect of compliance with standards and the impact on the external competitiveness of the EU beef and pork production. In some policy fields covered by cross-compliance important trade partners such as Canada, USA and New Zealand have implemented policies similar to the EU. In these three countries comparable standards to those in the EU were identified and the level and cost of compliance have been assessed. The pig sector will be affected most by a unilateral compliance with standards in the EU, in particular as the Nitrate Directive is concerned. Within the EU pig production costs will rise by 0.545 %. Imports may increase by 4% and exports may fall by 3%. However full application of the Clean Water Act in the US, which contains similar obligations to the Nitrate Directive, generates a significant sector cost increase (1,08%) which may counterbalance the loss of competitiveness of EU pork production towards the US. Compliance with the mandatory animal welfare standards has only minor cost implications and has negligible effects on external competitiveness of the EU both because of a high degree of compliance and relatively low adjustment costs at farm level. Finally, in many EU member states the degree of compliance of beef farms with the animal registration and identification directives is below 100%. Additional costs for full compliance within the EU have been estimated at 0.455%, which may cause an increase of beef imports of 2.21% and a decline of exports of –2.12%. This loss in competitiveness of the EU will further favour the position of Brazil on the world beef market. At the other hand significant benefits are obtained in food security of EU beef.

En este trabajo, y a partir de la informacion suministrada por la Red Contable Agraria, se ha tratado de produndizar en el conocimiento del sector vacuno de carne en Espana en el ano 1999. Se han estimado funciones de producticcion frontera ya las correspondientes medidas de eficiencia tecnica. Tambien se han calculado los costes de produccion y su participacion en el valor de la produccion. Los resultados obtenidos indican que existe cierto grado de ineficiencia tecnica en el sector. Ademas, la edad del ganagero, el tamano de la explotacion, el nivel de endeudamiento ya la dependencia de las subvenciones, entre otros aspectos, afectan al nivel de ediciencia de las explotaciones. En relacion a los costes pagados por las explotaciones, el componente mas importante es el que incluye los costes especificos ganaderos. Si tenemos en cuenta los costes de oportunidad de los factores propios, los costes de mano de obra pasan a ser los mas cuantiosos. Finalmente, la comparacion entre costes e indica que la mayoria de los ganaderos son capaces de hacer frente a los costes pagados, pero no a los costes totales. Las subvenciones juegan un papel importante, ya que permiten que un porcentaje relevante de explotaciones pueda remunerar los factores utilizados... The aim of this paper is to gain a deeper perspective of the Spanish beef sector in 1999, using data supplied by the Farm Agricultural Data Network. This involves the estimation of frontier productions and the corresponding technical efficiency measures. Production costs and their participation on the production value are also calculated. The results reveal some degree of technical inefficiency in the sector. The factors that are shown to play a role in determining farm efficiency levels are age of farmer, size of farm, amount of debt and dependence on subsidies, among others. The main component in the farm's paid costs is the part that corresponds specifically to stock farming. When the opportunity cost of the farmer's own factors is taken into account, the highest cost becomes labour costs. Finally, the comparison of costs and revenue shows that most farmers are able to handle paid costs, but not total costs. Subsidies play an important role, since they are the means by which large proportion of enterprises manages to pay for the factors used.

Recent food scares in the food market has caused a reduction in consumer's confidence in the food system that it has induced a significant reduction in consumption in a sector, the beef sector that was already characterized by a saturated trend in quantity terms. In this context, all participants in the beef production system are facing to a great challenge, to retrieve consumer's confidence in the food chain and to mitigate the reduction in beef consumption. The aim of the paper is to analyse the impact of consumer's confidence in the food system as well as other factors on the explanation of food consumption reduction. A structural modelling approach has been used to analyse factors affecting the reduction in beef consumption in two different regions characterised by different production systems and different marketing strategies (PGI beef label). Results indicate that main factor explaining the reduction in beef consumption is the confidence in the beef and a positive relation has been found. Moreover, confidence in a product is directly related to the perceived quality offered by farmers and other decision makers on the beef chain, and to the consumer involvement with the product. Therefore, the main implication is that participants in the food chain has to develop adequate communication strategies such as quality labelling in order to increase consumers perceive quality because, higher quality perception will recover consumers' confidence in beef, and therefore, it will mitigate beef consumption reduction.

The optimal level of formalisation of contracts and their dynamic is at stake in the economic literature on the optimum design of ex post renegotiation with third party enforcement. Another theoretical interpretation is that contract adaptations may also reflect mutual learning process between contractors. Why transactors write explicit contract that they know cannot be court enforced? The central idea is that explicit contract terms makes it clearer to the transactors what has been agreed upon, thus are decreasing the cost of private enforcement sanctions (Klein, 1996). Empirical evidences are provided by the diachronic analysis of the full set of tri-partite contracts between one of the top-ten french large retailer and its beef suppliers before and after the BSE crisis (period 1993-1999). The analysis emphasizes also the role of this increased codification of supply contracts with a progressive change in the internal retailer's organization, i.e. increased centralization of decision and supervision mechanisms. Contract design and organizational choices are then strongly interrelated.