everal authors propose agroecology as a more sustainable development path for livestock systems in temperate regions, yet the relevance of agroecology to the Flemish beefsector remains largely unexplored. In order to identify what actions are taken to pursue agroecological principles by what kind of farmers and on what kind of farms and to explain why this is so, we have developed a mixed methods research approach. We collectmental models of farm functioning through direct elicitation of cognitive maps with individual farmers. We seek to complement these with quantitative measures based onan accompanying structured farm questionnaireand characterizehow and to what extent agroecological principles are pursued at the farm levelin semi-structured interviews. From the more complete but still empirical account of reality generated by this triple approach, we identify patterns to corroboratea grounded theory on what sustains or limits the implementation of agroecological principles at Flemish beef farms. We extensively discuss the advantages and limits of this method of data gathering, processing and analysis from a critical realist perspective