Today, the impact on regional development is a major question with the challenge of building sustainable livestock production systems. This territorial dimension of sustainability needs new methodological approaches: sectorial or production chain approaches, are insufficient, precisely because they do not consider the territory. This paper analyzes the interactions between production chain and territory. The territory is defined as a crucible in which social, economic and environmental development mechanisms interact, and hence in which the sustainability of development is defined. Our approach was systemic, built on a Pressure – Response model (DPSIR) developed by the OECD. DPSIR allows for a given system, formalizing the relationship between Drivers exercising Pressures on the system, changing its State. This leads to Impacts on the components of this system, which can trigger Responses, which in turn alter the initial driving forces. For each mechanism, a list of indicators was compiled, prioritized and grouped in a participatory approach. This methodology aimed at facilitating the regulation of the two systems, production chain and territory, to better control their interactions. Given the high degree of complexity of the systems considered, the methodological approach began with a functional analysis of the poultry production chain, a historical analysis of territorial construction, and diagnosis of livestock production systems. The analysis was applied to an emblematic area of the challenges of tropical livestock production, the Rio Verde in Brazilian Cerrados region, one of the biggest areas of poultry agribusiness exports in Brazil.