Brittany and Pays de la Loire are two main regions in agriculture production. Together, they are the biggest area for the production of dairy, pig and poultry in France and one of the first in UE. The agriculture sector of the two regions create 95 000 jobs in the production and 90 000 in the food industry. Farming and food industry is a major economic force (economy and employment) and an essential factor of occupation and balance of the regional territory (respectively 72.9% and 65% of the area used for farming in Pays de la Loire and Brittany). The crisis (increase of input price, and decrease of output price) has an impact on farms and food industry, reducing the income, but thanks to modernized farms, production area dynamics, good soil and climatic conditions, dense industrial fabric, the presence of innovation actors, livestock remains and must remain an asset of the west of France.

Livestock represents a large part of agriculture in west of France, but declining due to the lack of competitiveness and then attractiveness. Our objective is to develop new techniques to reduce energy dependency in livestock farms, using farm resources, to make them more competitive, and then to keep our productive potential of livestock in west of France. We would associate farmers who work on energy self sufficiency, policies (regional and local – a test in 1 rural area that could be then replicate in other rural areas in west of France), our experimental farms, some entrepreneurs in energy production, and academia (agricultural school, training centers, research institutes).

Our piloting action is both in food and future and technology:

FOOD: our objective is to develop livestock farms that are resilient and using their own resources, in order to maintain livestock production (ie food), integrating the circular economy.

FUTURE and TECHNOLOGY: we plan to develop new technologies for energetic self-sufficiency (using methane to produce fuel for tractors, photovoltaic equipment for self-consumption, etc.).

To test the implementation of living lab techniques, using guidelines, that will help us to go faster and further in competitiveness and innovation.

There will be three LIVERUR Living Labs in Britanny, which is France’s first producing region of poultry (meat and egg), cow’s milk, veal calves, pigs and vegetable crops (green-houses and open field). Agriculture is a major economic and employment sector for the region from upstream to downstream along the supply chain with a dense agro-food sector employing 141 000: 67 000 in agriculture and 74 000 in agroalimentary sector.