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Extensive livestock farming systems in the Less Favored Areas (LFA) of the European Union (EU) are under social stress and requirement to adapt their production practices to new economic and social realities. This research argues that a restructuring plan for the cereal-sheep system of Castile-La Mancha may represent economic and ecological synergies. The potential implementation of a technical strategy (integrating cereal and sheep farming and increasing acreage of annual forage legumes) has been tested within a community-based research project carried out over three phases. Factual and empirical structural and social data were collected, proposal of reforms were submitted for consideration to local agricultural staff and farmers, and a set of guidance standards for restructuring developed. Results showed that both cereal and sheep farming, although carried out in the same land units, were not integrated. The agropastoral system was endangered mainly because the pastoralists (sheep owners) are land-less, while the cultivators (land owners) have a low stake in the grazing operation to enforce the law. Constraints related to the labor factor were more important than grazing land availability. Young farmers rejected the current sheep operation because of the harsh working conditions. Restructuring of the grazing system would require a new legal and institutional framework, a small land redistribution plan, and anew policy scenario that would link the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) support instrument to structural reforms.
