Impacts of the French bio-fuel policy on the French arable crop sub-sector

The paper provides an analysis of the impacts of the biofuel policy on the French arable crop sub-sector. The model used is a biofuel supply model composed of an agricultural module and an industrial biofuel processing module. The agricultural supply model is an aggregation of 1094 farm models, based on data from the French Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). Different biofuel chains are included in the model: ethanol from wheat and sugar beet, biodiesel (Vegetable Oil Methyl Ester) from rapeseed and sunflower. Scenarios are built upon the recent policy of an increased demand of biofuels for the next years, under the assumption of fulfilling the targets with domestic production only. Results show that the incorporation target of 7% of biofuels in transport fuels would have small impacts on the wheat and sugar beet cultivated areas but would lead to a considerable increase in the rapeseed area. In the main producing regions, the rapeseed area would reach approximatively a third of the total farmed area. This would not be without consequences on the environment, due to the increase in pesticide use that this change in cropping patterns would most certainly induce. It would not be possible to reach a 10% incorporation target without imports. Furthermore, we analyse the impacts of reaching these production levels on the rapeseed opportunity costs, and show that reaching high level of incorporation (above 7%) will need a very high increase in rapeseed prices paid to farmers. We calculate the impacts of this opportunity cost increase on the competitiveness of biofuels with respect to fossil oil, for different levels of oil prices. We test the sensitivity of the results against the wheat price, and show that this latter will have a significant impact on the biodiesel competitiveness.biofuel, agriculture, France, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries,

MOSAICA: A multi-scale bioeconomic model for the design and ex ante assessment of cropping system mosaics

International audienceTo understand the effects of policy changes on organisations and compositions of cropping systems at regional scale and their contribution to the sustainable development of regions, we built a regional, spatially explicit, multi-scale, bioeconomic model called MOSAICA. This model explicitly incorporates information at field, farm, sub-regional and regional scale to provide cropping system mosaics by way of regional optimisation of the sum of individual farmer's utilities under field, farm and territory biophysical and socio-economic constraints. Its generic structure means it can be used in different regions with geographic information on the location of the field and farm, data on cropping system performance, on location factors and on policy schemes. We used the model in Guadeloupe to test the impact of three scenarios of change on the agricultural subsidy regimes. The model produced three cropping system mosaics which reduced the area under banana and sugarcane, turned specialized banana and sugarcane farming systems into breeding systems while improving the overall contribution of agriculture to sustainable development. The spatially explicit results of changes in ecosystem services, and in farming systems with MOSAICA make it an appropriate decision-aid tool for regional planning

Recent developments and prospects for the production of biofuels in the EU: Can they really be "Part of Solution"?

The European Union has launched an ambitious policy aiming at increasing the use of biofuels in land transport “with a view to contributing to objectives such as meeting climate change commitments, environmentally friendly security of supply and promoting renewable energy sources”. Another motivation, at least for some member states, is that the development of biofuels is expected to provide larger outlets for domestic farm products and new employment opportunities in rural areas and make future adjustments of the Common agricultural policy easier. The EU policy of support to energy crops, tax exemption for biofuels and mandatory incorporation targets in some member states, has resulted in a significant increase in the demand and supply of biofuels. The market share of biofuels remains modest (1 % in 2005 in the EU-25) but has increased dramatically over the last few months. The paper provides an analysis of recent developments and prospects for the production and utilization of biofuels in the EU. Its presents the potential benefits of biofuels in the EU as well as their possible drawbacks. In particular, it addresses the three related issues of energy efficiency, environmental benefits and cost competitiveness of EU biofuels.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

How to Measure the Performance of Farms with Regard to Climate-Smart Agriculture Goals? A Set of Indicators and Its Application in Guadeloupe

Conceptualized by the Food and Agriculture Organization in 2010, climate-smart agriculture aims to simultaneously tackle three main objectives. These are increasing food security, building the resilience of agricultural systems for adaptation to climate change and mitigation of GHG. As much research focuses on one of these three objectives, our understanding of how agricultural systems address these three challenges simultaneously is limited by the lack of a comprehensive evaluation tool. In order to fill this gap, we have developed a generic evaluation framework that comprises 19 indicators that we measured in a sample of 12 representative farms of the North Basse-Terre region in Guadeloupe. The evaluation revealed clear differences in the performance of these farming systems. For example, nutritional performance varied from 0 to 13 people fed per hectare, the average potential impact of climatic conditions varied from 27% to 33% and the GHG emissions balance varied from +0.8 tCO(2eq)center dot ha(-1) to +3.6 tCO(2eq)center dot ha(-1). The results obtained can guide the design of innovative production systems that better meet the objectives of climate-smart agriculture for the study region. The evaluation framework is intended as a generic tool for a common evaluation basis across regions at a larger scale. Future prospects are its application and validation in different contexts

Impacts of the French bio-fuel policy on the French arable crop sub-sector

The paper provides an analysis of the impacts of the biofuel policy on the French arable crop sub-sector. The model used is a biofuel supply model composed of an agricultural module and an industrial biofuel processing module. The agricultural supply model is an aggregation of 1094 farm models, based on data from the French Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). Different biofuel chains are included in the model: ethanol from wheat and sugar beet, biodiesel (Vegetable Oil Methyl Ester) from rapeseed and sunflower. Scenarios are built upon the recent policy of an increased demand of biofuels for the next years, under the assumption of fulfilling the targets with domestic production only. Results show that the incorporation target of 7% of biofuels in transport fuels would have small impacts on the wheat and sugar beet cultivated areas but would lead to a considerable increase in the rapeseed area. In the main producing regions, the rapeseed area would reach approximatively a third of the total farmed area. This would not be without consequences on the environment, due to the increase in pesticide use that this change in cropping patterns would most certainly induce. It would not be possible to reach a 10% incorporation target without imports. Furthermore, we analyse the impacts of reaching these production levels on the rapeseed opportunity costs, and show that reaching high level of incorporation (above 7%) will need a very high increase in rapeseed prices paid to farmers. We calculate the impacts of this opportunity cost increase on the competitiveness of biofuels with respect to fossil oil, for different levels of oil prices. We test the sensitivity of the results against the wheat price, and show that this latter will have a significant impact on the biodiesel competitiveness

Analyse micro-économique de scénarios de réforme de l’OCM sucre à l’aide d’un modèle d’offre agricole

Référence MAAPAR 04 H1 03 01 Diffusion du document : UMR Economie publique BP 01 78850 Thiverval-Grignon (FRA)Trois scénarios de réforme de l’OCM Sucre ont été réalisés sur un échantillon de 609 exploitations betteravières du RICA français 2000. Ces exploitations ont une SAU moyenne de 133 ha et un revenu agricole moyen de 337 €/ha. Un modèle d'offre fondé sur la programmation linéaire a été utilisé pour cette étude. La solution de référence est une optimisation en 2006 après application du compromis de Luxembourg. Le premier scénario maintient le régime des quotas et les prix actuels, mais diminue le volume de 30%. On observe une baisse moyenne des revenus agricole de -8%. Le scénario 2 propose une suppression du régime des quotas et un prix de la betterave à 25€/t. L'offre de betterave serait multipliée par 2,5 mais le nombre de producteur et leur revenu resteraient stables. Une limitation du volume aux quantités actuelles entraînerait des chutes de revenu agricole de -16%. Une aide de 5€/t pourrait limiter cette baisse à -6%. Le scénario 3 simule une suppression du régime des quotas et un prix de la betterave au cours mondial (15€/t). 20% des producteurs français resteraient compétitifs, la production de sucre chuterait de 70% et les revenus agricoles de 29%, soit une perte d’environ 100€ / ha de SAU. Pour compenser 50% de la perte, une aide de 7,5€/t de betterave A+B est nécessaire. Ces scénarios n'ont pas tout à fait les mêmes impacts selon les régions. Dans l'hypothèse d'une redistribution de la production nationale, on pourrait observer un accroissement de la concentration régionale de la production

La révision à mi-parcours de la PAC (juin 2003) et les exploitations céréalières des régions intermédiaires

National audienceA l'aide d'un modèle régional d'offre optimisant le revenu agricole des exploitations et simulant parallèlement les évolutions des structures agricoles sur la période 2002-2012, les impacts de la réforme sur les revenus agricoles, sur les assolements et sur la déprise (non-culture) ont été analysés. Les simulations montrent un léger risque de déprise, 8% des exploitations, si le prix des céréales diminue nettement, 81 euros à l'horizon 2012. Le maintien du prix d'intervention devrait normalement empêcher une baisse aussi importante et donc la déprise. Un recouplage de 25% des aides serait une assurance envers la déprise. L'agrandissement (disparition de 12% des exploitations à l'horizon 2012) et le progrès agronomique devraient permettre un maintien du revenu agricole par exploitation en euros constants (taux d'inflation 1,4%). L'équilibre des productions évolue peu avec le découplage car les aides couplées actuelles par culture sont identiques, depuis l'application de l'Agenda 2000

EU sugar reforms and their impacts

Le secteur sucrier européen a subit une réforme en profondeur en 2006.Les conséquences de cette réforme risquent d’être très importantes. En effet, l’UE pourrait devenir importateur de sucre, alors qu’elle était encore le deuxième exportateur mondial il y a quelques années.Des modifications importantes du secteur sucrier ont été réalisées depuis 18 mois. Elles sont cependant plus le résultat d’une délocalisation de la production que d’un réel abandon des quotas de production.La réduction de la production n’est pas suffisante pour répondre aux engagements de l’Union européennes concernant de nouvelles importations, conformément aux accords préférentiels, ni à la réduction des exportations subventionnées imposés par le panel de l’OMC de 2005.Les auteurs présentent ici les réformes récentes de l'Union européenne ainsi que des simulations de modification du secteur sucrier européen, dans le cadre d'un accord à l’OMC et d’un respect des objectifs d’incorporation de biocarburants dans les carburants utilisés dans le transport

Designing innovative agricultural land systems in the Caribbean: application to Guadeloupe

Farming system design needs to adopt a landscape perspective in order to better respond to sustainability issues at the regional scale. Thus, we built a method at the regional scale to design agricultural land systems accounting for field characteristics and farm diversity, current farming systems and cropping systems, and the ecological processes (e.g. pollution of water bodies) at the regional scale. This method encompasses the definition of a farm typology to approach farmer's decision processes in term of cropping system choice. This farm typology is integrated within a regional bioeconomic model that produces new agricultural land systems by simulating farmers' decision processes in term of cropping system choices at plot scale, within the entire region. These new agricultural land systems are assessed with a set of indicators to provide information on their response to sustainability issues. This model coupled to the indicators are used within a scenario route to provide information on the relevance of combination of agronomic, economic, social and environmental levers to improve the contribution of agriculture to sustainable development. The method is applied in Guadeloupe for prototyping agricultural land systems that improve the response of agriculture to economic, social and environmental challenges with levers such as "agro ecological crop-gardening cropping systems", "energy crop", "changes in crop subsidies" and "availability of experienced workforce in farms". This method could be used in the Caribbean islands to help decision-makers improve the response of agriculture to sustainability challenges such as reaching food self-sufficiency, increasing employment and decreasing environmental impacts of agriculture. Coupling this approach to land use change study could provide a way of designing future sustainable islands

Optimization of Biomass and Compost Management to Sustain Soil Organic Matter in Energy Cane Cropping Systems in a Tropical Polluted Soil: a Modelling Study

International audienceIn French West Indies, the high dependency of the electricity mix on imported fossil fuels has led local authorities to propose the conversion of some land to the production of energy cane. This conversion mainly concerns land polluted by the pesticide chlordecone, where most crops for human consumption have been banned. This molecule has a strong affinity for soil organic matter (SOM). The aims of this study were to assess the impact of crop residue management and compost application on the stocks of SOM and chlordecone in soils cultivated with energy cane and to determine the minimum SOM input required to maintain SOM stocks. A field experiment was conducted to determine the yield and biomass partitioning of energy cane, and laboratory incubations were performed to estimate humification from crop residues. Changes in SOM and chlordecone stocks over a 30-year period were investigated using models already calibrated for the land under study. Non-harvestable biomass left on the field (tops, litterfall and roots) covered >60 % of SOM mineralization. A full offset of mineralization required the return of 10 % of harvestable biomass or the application of compost at a rate of 40 Mg ha−1 every 5 years. With the total removal of harvestable biomass and without compost applications, SOM and chlordecone losses increased by 23 and 13 %, respectively, which was associated with high SOM mineralization and chlordecone leaching under tropical climate. The estimated break-even price for cane biomass indicated that compost application would be more profitable for farmers than the return of a part of the harvestable biomass