Shared Research Questions On Soil Quality In Organic Farming Systems

"In 2018, a participatory national workshop was organized by ITAB (Organic Food and Farming Technical Institute) and INRA (National Institute for Agricultural Research) in order to highlight issues on soils in Organic Farming (OF) systems. The objectives were: i) to identify the key research questions to be addressed on soils in OF, ii) to make it possible to facilitate network and project building from interactions between academics and stakeholders.Over 150 participants from academic and professional origins attended the workshop which was designed according to The Town Hall Meeting (THM) methodology.High level discussions among participants and panel experts ended up with a list of 20 research questions which confirmed the important lack of knowledge on that topic and the needs for research on the following issues: soils functioning with a focus on biogeochemical cycling and biological interactions; long term effects of agricultural practices, more or less specific to OF; soils protection; tools for soils diagnosis and management.

Foisonnement de l'innovation agricole : quelques exemples d'initiatives en élevage herbivore

Les témoignages rassemblés pour illustrer le foisonnement des innovations agricoles émanent d'acteurs différents (agriculteurs, recherche, développement) mais sont tous caractérisés par des approches plutôt systémiques et des dynamiques de co-conception. Les thèmes abordés concernent la production (valorisation des surfaces avec des cultures dérobées, sélection d'espèce prairiales locales), l'appropriation de résultats de recherche (amélioration de la gestion des prairies), la conception d'itinéraires techniques (solutions pour limiter les pertes d'azote en rotation prairie - prairie), l'évaluation de systèmes (repérer des pratiques innovantes en mobilisant des principes de l'agroécologie) mais aussi l'amélioration des conditions de travail et la formation (communication « intergénérationnelle » entre des paysans herbagers et des élèves)

The value of manure - Manure as co-product in life cycle assessment

Research ArticleLivestock production is important for food security, nutrition, and landscape maintenance, but it is associated with several environmental impacts. To assess the risk and benefits arising from livestock production, transparent and robust indicators are required, such as those offered by life cycle assessment. A central question in such approaches is how environmental burden is allocated to livestock products and to manure that is re-used for agricultural production. To incentivize sustainable use of manure, it should be considered as a co-product as long as it is not disposed of, or wasted, or applied in excess of crop nutrient needs, in which case it should be treated as a waste. This paper proposes a theoretical approach to define nutrient requirements based on nutrient response curves to economic and physical optima and a pragmatic approach based on crop nutrient yield adjusted for nutrient losses to atmosphere and water. Allocation of environmental burden to manure and other livestock products is then based on the nutrient value from manure for crop production using the price of fertilizer nutrients. We illustrate and discuss the proposed method with two case studiesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evaluation of SPOT imagery for the estimation of grassland biomass.

International audienc

Agricultural practices in grasslands detected by spatial remote sensing

International audienceThe major decrease in grassland surfaces associated with changes in their management that has been observed in many regions of the earth during the last half century has major impacts on environmental and socio-economic systems. This study focuses on the identification of grassland management practices in an intensive agricultural watershed located in Brittany, France, by analyzing the intra-annual dynamics of the surface condition of vegetation using remotely sensed and field data. We studied the relationship between one vegetation index (NDVI) and two biophysical variables (LAI and fCOVER) derived from a series of three SPOT images on one hand and measurements collected during field campaigns achieved on 120 grasslands on the other. The results show that the LAI appears as the best predictor for monitoring grassland mowing and grazing. Indeed, because of its ability to characterize vegetation status, LAI estimated from remote sensing data is a relevant variable to identify these practices. LAI values derived from the SPOT images were then classified based on the K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) supervised algorithm. The results points out that the distribution of grassland management practices such as grazing and mowing can be mapped very accurately (Kappa index = 0.82) at a field scale over large agricultural areas using a series of satellite images

Flux de nitrate dans les élevages bovins et qualité de l'eau : variabilité des phénomènes et diversité des conditions

National audienc