ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with farming system analysis, a topic that entails dealing with all the typologies of epistemological problems associated with complexity discussed so far. A useful knowledge of farming systems, in fact, has to be based on a repertoire of typologies of farming systems. On the other hand, all farming systems are special, in the sense that their representations must include the speciÞcity of their history and the speciÞcity of local constraints. To make things more difÞcult, the very concept of farming systems implies dealing with a system that is operating within two nonequivalent contexts: a socioeconomic context and an ecological context. That is, any real farm is operating within a given typology of socioeconomic system and within a given typology of ecosystem. The two identities of these two contexts are very important when selecting an analytical representation of a farming system. In fact, a typology of farming system has to be related, by deÞnition, to an expected associative context. This is the step where concepts such as impredicative loop analysis (ILA) and multi-criteria performance space (MCPS) become crucial. In fact, they make it possible to characterize the reciprocal constraints associated with the dynamic budget of the farming system considered, which is interacting with its two contexts exchanging ßows of energy, matter and added value. A given selection of typologies used to represent its identity (system, typical size, metabolic ßows considered) has to be compatible with the set of typologies used to represent the identities of its socioeconomic and ecological context.
