Gestion de la biodiversité en milieu céréalier intensif : importance des prairies aux échelles locales et régionales

Des solutions efficaces pour intégrer le développement agricole et la conservation de la biodiversité à l'échelle du paysage restent à identifier. Nous présentons une étude de cas dans une plaine céréalière française exploitée de façon intensive, où la réintroduction des prairies a été proposé d'abord pour des fins de conservation afin de protéger l'outarde canepetière, une espèce d'oiseau très menacée. Les prairies ont été mises en place grâce à l’outil « Mesures Agri-environnementales (MAE) », à titre expérimental. L’efficacité des MAE sur les outardes a été totale. Leur mise en oeuvre a révélé d'autres effets bénéfiques sur pratiquement toutes les composantes du réseau trophique dans ces agroécosystèmes, en particulier au niveau du paysage. En effet, dans les systèmes céréaliers intensifs, les habitats pérennes telles que les prairies sont radicalement différentes de cultures annuelles en termes de niveau et de fréquence des perturbations (labour, semis, pulvérisation, etc.). Nos résultats montrent que les prairies, en particulier la luzerne, sont le support de nombreux services écosystémiques. Cependant, actuellement, les prairies sont peu utilisées par les agriculteurs qui privilégient les cultures de céréales pour des raisons économiques (y compris les subventions de la PAC). Nous soulevons la question de savoir si la répartition des cultures à l'échelle du paysage (par exemple l’introduction de prairies) peut être modifiée sans financement public, afin d'en augmenter la proportion. En d'autres termes, comment surmonter la réticence des producteurs de céréales pour produire des cultures fourragères

Experiences from a winter school on landscape agronomy: Stakes, difficulties, perspectives

International audienceIn the latest fifteen years, agronomic research has shown a growing interest for studies which link farm or field scale to landscape scale. Thus, agronomy is called to renew its research questions and methodologies, and as well its educational programmes. In this context, some French and Italian researchers interested in these topics, coming from different scientific fields but sharing interests on landscape scale issues in research and higher education, decided to join their efforts around a common one-week educational programme on Landscape Agronomy for undergraduate and PhD students. Their aim has been to develop a new form of knowledge transfer and application on Landscape Agronomy approaches to students of SSSA-Pisa (IT) and of the PhD School of ABIES-AgroParisTech-Paris (FR). The educational programme consisted of three phases : 1) some theoretical contributions supported by presentations on : issues regarding agriculture and farming practices at landscape level, main approaches on environmental functions of agriculture, changes in farmers practices driven by environmental questions,spatial organization of agricultural activities, role of farming in ecological dynamics, identification of complementarities among agro-environmental functions, environmental impacts of cropping systems,biodiversity influence on agro-ecosystem functions and vice-versa ; 2) two case-studies: a macro level one(at landscape scale) to analyse the role of agriculture on landscape dynamics, and a micro level one (at farm scale) to analyse farming practices and their environmental impacts ; 3) a final evaluation of the educational programme based on : contents of oral presentations on fieldwork results, global evaluation of the educational programme contents by all the participants, each individual ex-post analysis of fieldwork results. The evaluation of the students and teachers underlines benefits, requests and perspectives for education in landscape agronomy. Furthermore, this experience stimulated a collective conceptual and methodological debate that confirmed the necessity to favour and organise experience exchanges on researching and learning in landscape agronomy

Landscape Agroecology and ecosystem services

Landscape Agroecology and ecosystem service

An integrative multi‐scale approach to regional agriculture to support the assessment and benefit of pest‐regulation services delivered by biodiversity

Ecology is first of all a scientific discipline, with its body of theories and methods, and a constant renewal of its main specific fields and principles. In that regard, Ecology is not different from the other scientific disciplines and produces an increasing number of outstanding publications on both fundamental and applied grounds. Ecology can produce highly theoretical works, which is essential, but Ecology can be -and even moremust be an applied science. Currently, practical applications of Ecology for the benefits of our societies have become more numerous and increasingly urgent. ‘Interactions’, sensu lato, are at the very heart of Ecology which makes it by definition THE science of Biodiversity. Beyond the knowledge of how Life has appeared and developed, Ecology can provide the basis for the preservation of Biodiversity and ensure its management is relevant and efficient into the future. By being more integrative and global, Ecology could establish itself as the cornerstone of sustainable development. In this beginning of the 21st century, the influence of Ecology will inevitably grow and play a key role for Planet Earth and human well-being. Sfécologie2016, an International Conference on ecological sciences would not have taken place without 2 years of hard work from the staff of my Institute (IMBE). That is thus with a real pleasure that we welcome you today in Marseille. (Thierry TATONI IMBE Director

Farmer surveys in Europe suggest that specialized, intensive farms were more likely to perceive negative impacts from COVID-19.

It has been shown that the COVID-19 pandemic affected some agricultural systems more than others, and even within geographic regions, not all farms were affected to the same extent. To build resilience of agricultural systems to future shocks, it is key to understand which farms were affected and why. In this study, we examined farmers' perceived robustness to COVID-19, a key resilience capacity. We conducted standardized farmer interviews (n = 257) in 15 case study areas across Europe, covering a large range of socio-ecological contexts and farm types. Interviews targeted perceived livelihood impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on productivity, sales, price, labor availability, and supply chains in 2020, as well as farm(er) characteristics and farm management. Our study corroborates earlier evidence that most farms were not or only slightly affected by the first wave(s) of the pandemic in 2020, and that impacts varied widely by study region. However, a significant minority of farmers across Europe reported that the pandemic was "the worst crisis in a lifetime" (3%) or "the worst crisis in a decade" (7%). Statistical analysis showed that more specialized and intensive farms were more likely to have perceived negative impacts. From a societal perspective, this suggests that highly specialized, intensive farms face higher vulnerability to shocks that affect regional to global supply chains. Supporting farmers in the diversification of their production systems while decreasing dependence on service suppliers and supply chain actors may increase their robustness to future disruptions. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13593-022-00820-5

Le projet SEBIOPAG-PHYTO : déterminants agricoles parcellaires et paysagers des variations de niveaux de régulation biologique

Ce séminaire est une restitution des principales avancées obtenues dans le cadre des projets ANR PEERLESS «viabilité d’une gestion écologique renforcée de la santé des plantes dans les paysages agricoles » (2013-2017) et FRB SEBIOPAG-PHYTO «déterminants agricoles parcellaires et paysagers des variations de niveaux de régulation biologique » (2014-2017). Le séminaire a rassemblé 60 scientifiques, pour moitié extérieure aux unités INRA partenaires de ces projets. Il s'est déroulé à Paris Paris les 27-28 novembre 2017

How is agroforestry perceived in Europe? An assessment of positive and negative aspects by stakeholders

Whilst the benefits of agroforestry are widely recognised in tropical latitudes few studies have assessed how agroforestry is perceived in temperate latitudes. This study evaluates how stakeholders and key actors including farmers, landowners, agricultural advisors, researchers and environmentalists perceive the implementation and expansion of agroforestry in Europe. Meetings were held with 30 stakeholder groups covering different agroforestry systems in 2014 in eleven EU countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). In total 344 valid responses were received to a questionnaire where stakeholders were asked to rank the positive and negative aspects of implementing agroforestry in their region. Improved biodiversity and wildlife habitats, animal health and welfare, and landscape aesthetics were seen as the main positive aspects of agroforestry. By contrast, increased labour, complexity of work, management costs and administrative burden were seen as the most important negative aspects. Overall, improving the environmental value of agriculture was seen as the main benefit of agroforestry, whilst management and socio-economic issues were seen as the greatest barriers. The great variability in the opportunities and barriers of the systems suggests enhanced adoption of agroforestry across Europe will be most likely to occur with specific initiatives for each type of system

Challenges and innovations for improving the resilience of European agroforestry systems of high nature and cultural value: a stakeholder perspective

Traditional forms of agroforestry are often recognized as exemplar systems that successfully integrate food production, biodiversity conservation and high cultural values. However many traditional agroforestry systems in Europe are in decline or are threatened and the perspectives of local stakeholders on the production, management, socio-economic, and environmental dimensions of such systems are not fully understood. To fill this gap, we present results of participatory research performed with ten stakeholder groups (SG) across Europe to search for solutions to improve the economic and ecological sustainability of High Nature and Cultural Value agroforestry systems (HNCV agroforestry). Stakeholders included both users and beneficiaries of the HNCV agroforestry. First, SGs held open discussions (227 participants) to identify major challenges for the long-term sustainability of HNCV agroforestry. Challenges were classified into production, management, socio-economic and the environment categories. Second, they responded to structured questionnaires (120 respondents) that explored the positive and negative perceptions of 45 possible attributes of HNCV agroforestry. Third, innovative solutions were identified by individual and group discussions to address the four categories of challenge. Challenges were mostly identified for the management and socio-economic categories, but several challenges concerning production and environment were also pinpointed. Besides, solutions matched poorly with the challenges identified, and, while challenges were at some extent common across countries, solutions to address them were more case-specific. The successful implementation of these solutions requires an in-depth understanding of the diversity of socio-cultural and natural contexts of the HNCV agroforestry systems and building bottom-up proposals and collective actions based on this understanding. The sustainability of HNCV agroforestry would be benefited by providing farmers and managers with a financial advantage from the high nature and cultural value of these systems