Can local breeds be a lever to develop organic and agro ecological livestock farming? Questions raised from exploratory interviews in Guadeloupe

Local breeds are often considered as original genetic resources with adaptation aptitudes that could be useful in agroecological transition. Producing situated knowledge about their actual role in the development of agroecological farming systems, in various cases, is a way to produce more generic knowledge about the links between local breeds and agroecology. The core question of the REGALDOM project is: what contribution can local animal genetic resources have to the development of organic mixed crop-livestock systems in the French overseas departments? To contribute to answer it, the obstacles to and levers for the use of local breeds should be better characterized. Nine exploratory interviews were conducted with stakeholders of livestock farming in Guadeloupe. The main highlights were discussed during a working session gathering the authors of this communication, based on their expertise on farming systems and animal breeding of local breeds in the region. We underlined the need to qualify precisely the transitions considered, as logics underpinning either agroecology or organic farming can be different, and farmers' motives to go towards such systems can be diverse. We also question how knowledge produced about local breeds' characteristics could be valorized. Indeed, stakeholders perceived a diversity of specificities of local breeds, but some of them also perceived a lack of operational references concerning local breeds. We third highlight the question of how to add value to local breeds' products. We identified several individual projects to add value to food products. Some rested upon local breeds, or would see an interest in using them. However, we identified possible difficulties to the development of such initiatives. Finally, we question how to connect dynamics at farm scale and dynamics at collective, and territorial levels.