Grazing land management and sheep farm viability in semi—arid areas: Evidence from Western Lesvos, Greece

In semi-arid areas of the Mediterranean basin, sheep and goat herding has been a land management activity for millennia. In the last decades, intensification of grazing has resulted in grazing land degradation. Today, many sheep farms face growing dependence from feed to cover the dietary needs of animals, as grazing land productivity covers only a fraction of these needs and decreasing economic outputs. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework for linking grazing lands management practices and economic viability of sheep farms in Agra, a village in Western Lesvos. The framework required data from grazing lands (biomass production in four periods of the year, plant diversity and plant composition), production and quality of milk and economic viability of four sheep farms. Some insights and initial results of the first year of the research are presented and discussed.