Between local and global: which reconfiguration within Dairy Basins? A comparative analysis from North & South case-studies

Between globalization and territorialisation, milk sector is changing. For instance, since World War II we can notice in Western Europe a decreasing of small size farms and of small processing units. In the same time very large enterprises have developed, taking advantage of the world wide dimension of agro- food systems and new technologies. As a consequence the distance is increasing between products, farming activities and territories. However, in some areas, local agri-food systems maintained, taking advantage of an organizational, geographical or cultural proximity between local actors and of the increasing concerns on proximity, locality or heritage. As a consequence we notice, in some Dairy Basins, different ways of reorganization in agro-food systems concerning both livestock farming systems and processing firms toward territorial roots of their products. Globalization and localization of fluxes are in action in dairy industry. How do these processes appear and express themselves within the territories? Which expression and consequences on changes in farming systems? May we see some synergies or oppositions between these processes? To answer these interrogations our research is based on the analysis of the ways these changes have been operating in seven Dairy Basins in France (3), Southern America (Uruguay, Brazil), Western Africa (Senegal) and South Eastern Asia (Vietnam). We consider the Dairy Basin as the territory where these dynamics express and interact. Our approach is based on a diachronic analysis of changes operating in Dairy Basins since the middle XXth century: changes in marketing strategies of firms as well as in livestock farming practices, (re) localization of these activities, local dynamics within the studied area, time matches with major events. These chronicles constitute an intermediate object, allowing the understanding of the ways food chains/livestock farming systems/territories interact as well as they co-evolve along the time. From a comparative analysis of these case studies we will identify emerging conditions and ways of expression of these “glocalisations” processes and the main drivers of changes according the context they are embedded in.