FS 3.203: European Mountain Livestock Farming: Challenges and Solutions

European mountain farming and transhumance has a 1000-year tradition, providing services to society such as food production, recreation, cultural heritage and biodiversity conservation. Animal welfare is high, the products are original and conservation of open landscapes is desirable. But what does the future hold? The sector is faced by multiple challenges, including shrub encroachment, climate change-related water scarcity, heat stress and heavy precipitation events as well as conservation conflicts over wolves and bears. As mountain livestock farming is becoming increasingly professionalized, the number of people employed per animal is constantly decreasing. In parallel, presence of wolves and bears require more labor-intensive herd protection and lead to physical and psychological stress. Farms cannot keep pace with these developments, as pasture and farm management remain labor-intensive and therefore costly. As a result, labor force in mountain livestock farming is becoming increasingly scarce and some farms are abandoned. In this focus session we are looking for approaches on how mountain livestock farming, including transhumance, can be kept profitable, amid these multiple challenges. We are looking for contributions that analyze and provide technical, managerial and governance solutions from disciplines including (but not limited to) agronomy, ecology, economics, sociology, and livestock sciences. We are equally interested in disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches.