Conclusion
A key outcome of the SWOT analyses, particularly for the weaknesses associated with mixed farming, was the broad range of social issues that arose. Issues such as high farmer workload (low quality of life), lack of skills in cropping and livestock farming, aging farmer population, lack of succession in farm ownership, lack of co-operation between farmers and limited adoption of technologies by farmers are issues that cannot be solved with technical developments. Support in the form on advisory and extension services, policies to encourage young people into farming and supply chain support to encourage farmer co-operation are necessary developments to address these issues. The perceived complexity of mixed farming systems in terms of management and lower productivity and profitability are very real risks that farmers face when considering mixed farming. All these factors must be taken into consideration when developing innovative mixed farming systems to ensure their uptake by farmers. Similarly many supply chain, policy and market opportunities and threats were identified. The opportunities must be taken up wherever possible to maximize the potential benefits of mixed farming, and while many of the threats cannot be addressed at a farm or even regional level (e.g. climate change and poor supply chain infrastructure,) they must be taken into consideration when designing mixed farm systems in order to minimize their impact.
A broad range of contextual issues has been identified in Wales, France, Aragón, Sweden and Poland that need to be considered when developing innovative mixed farming systems. To concentrate on one aspect of innovation (e.g. solving technical issues of exchange of manure between farms) without considering other aspects (e.g. the increased workload to the farmer) will result in limited uptake of the innovation and the subsequent ability of the mixed farming system to deliver a wide range of agricultural and environmental goods and services.