Indicators of Agricultural intensity and intensification: a review of the literature

Since the 1960s, research has dealt with agricultural intensification (AI) as a solution to ensure global food security. Recently, sustainable intensification (SI) has increasingly been used to describe those agricultural and farming systems that ensure adequate ecosystem service provision. Studies differ in terms of the application scales and methodologies, thus we aim to summarize the main findings from the literature on how AI and SI are assessed, from the farm to global levels. Our literature review is based on 7865 papers selected from the Web of Science database and analysed using CorText software. A further selection of 105 relevant papers was used for an in-depth full-text analysis on: i) farming systems studied; ii) related ecosystem services; iii) indicators of intensity; and iv) temporal and spatial scales of analysis. Through this two-step analysis we were able to highlight three main research gaps in the AI research indicators. Firstly, the farming systems analysed for assessing AI are often quite simplified or monoculture- oriented, and they do not take the diversity and complex organisation of farming systems into account. Secondly, these studies mainly focus on northern countries or developing countries, whereas there is a gap of knowledge in Mediterranean areas, which are the areas with a high complexity of farming systems and diversity in ecosystem services. Finally, AI is mostly assessed through nitrogen inputs and economic yield, which are used the most both at very local and global levels. Intermediate regional or local levels, which are relevant for policy implementation and local planning, are often neglected

Co-designing innovative cropping systems with stakeholders

Over the last decades, farmers have been subject to the impacts of a number of driving forces acting at the global level, which have substantially modified the structure and the organization of cropping systems [...]

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

Imbalance of Mg Homeostasis as a Potential Biomarker in Colon Cancer

Background: Increasing evidences support a correlation between magnesium (Mg) homeostasis and colorectal cancer (CRC). Nevertheless, the role of Mg and its transporters as diagnostic markers in CRC is still a matter of debate. In this study we combined X-ray Fluorescence Microscopy and databases information to investigate the possible correlation between Mg imbalance and CRC. Methods: CRC tissue samples and their non-tumoural counterpart from four patients were collected and analysed for total Mg level and distribution by X-Ray Fluorescence Microscopy. We also reviewed the scientific literature and the main tissue expression databases to collect data on Mg transporters expression in CRC. Results: We found a significantly higher content of total Mg in CRC samples when compared to non-tumoural tissues. Mg distribution was also impaired in CRC. Conversely, we evidenced an uncertain correlation between Mg transporters expression and colon malignancies. Discussion: Although further studies are necessary to determine the correlation between different cancer types and stages, this is the first report proposing the measurement of Mg tissue localisation as a marker in CRC. This study represents thus a proof-of-concept that paves the way for the design of a larger prospective investigation of Mg in CRC

Typologie des auréoles bocagères en milieu rural

La communauté de communes de la région de Bapaume (CCRB) a réalisé un état des lieux de son territoire pour définir les grandes orientations d’aménagement. L’étude intègre les auréoles bocagères à l’interface des zones urbanisées et du milieu agricole, reconnues comme dépendantes des dynamiques agricoles locales. Pour ce faire, il est nécessaire de réaliser des diagnostics des territoires, intégrant les éléments semi-naturels, et par-là même de définir des typologies. L’étude s’est intéressée à la comparaison de deux méthodes pour la réalisation des typologies : à dire d’experts et statistique. Les typologies des auréoles bocagères ont montré que les communes avec des auréoles dégradées sont majoritaires. Leur état de conservation n’a pu être corrélé ni avec les orientations technico-économiques ou les typologies des communes ni avec la présence d’infrastructures routières. L’étude démontre l’importance de la prise en compte historique du territoire et l’insuffisance de la méthode statistique qui ne traduit pas assez finement l’impression paysagère locale.The grouping of municipalities of the region of Bapaume (in French Communauté de communes de la région de Bapaume) has surveyed its territory in order to define major development needs. The survey includes the peri-urban bocage landscapes which are the interface between urban and farming areas, and are recognised as dependent on local farming activities. To conduct this survey it is necessary to carry out diagnostics of the territories, including semi-natural elements, and in the process to define typologies. The study focuses on comparing two methods for establishing typologies : one based on expertise and the other on statistics. The typologies of the peri-urban bocage landscapes reveal the fact that a majority of municipalities have degraded bocage landscapes. Their state of preservation can not be correlated with technical and economic trends, with typologies of municipalities, or with the presence of road infrastructures. The study reveals the importance of taking into account the historical background of the territory and the shortcomings of a statistical method which does not provide a sufficiently detailed picture of the local landscape

La valutazione delle funzioni agro-ambientali: un approccio agronomico-territoriale

Titre traduit : La caractérisation des fonctions agro-envoronnementales : une apporche par l'agronomie des territoires (français)European agro-environmental policies target several environmental resources used for farming. Difficulties in considering multiple agro-environmental functions (AEF) and farming activities, along with lack of databases, hinder the implementation of such policies at regional scale. Hence we propose a method to qualify AEF fulfilment at landscape and regional scales. Starting from the relationships among farming systems, agro-environmental processes and land use patterns, we suppose a link between land use patterns and AEF fulfilment obtained from bio-physical conditions influencing such processes. The method was multiple functions oriented, because of the current agro-environmental policies; at multiple levels, because of the complex relationships between our research subjects; spatially-explicit, to be reproducible for different time spans; empirical, because partially based on assumed relationships between descriptors of AEF fulfilment. We have tested the method in two European NUTS3: Puy-de-Dome (France) and Grosseto Province (Italy), presenting similar agro-environmental heterogeneity (e.g. varying from arable crops plains to extensive livestock mountains) and different conditions (e.g. soil quality, land use, climate). Even though facing some different AEF, both areas presented a good correspondence between the AEF fulfilment at the farming region and landscape scales. In the French case, we found a higher composition variability of AEF fulfilment but a small spatial variability resulting in a quite homogeneous contribution of farms to AEF and in a poor added value of land use patterns. In the Italian case, we found a correspondence between land use patterns and AEF fulfilment resulting in an high predictive value of land use patterns, overcoming farm technical data. We conclude that land use patterns may be a promising tool to assess AEF only when there is a high AEF spatial variability, which is typical of Mediterranean areas.Plusieurs enjeux concernant les ressources environnementales mobilisées par l'agriculture sont l'objet de politiques européennes. Leur implémentation régionale est difficile du fait d'un manque d'outils et de données pour évaluer en même temps des fonctions agro-environnementales (FAE) et différentes activités agricoles. En analysant les relations entre systèmes de production, processus agro-environnementaux et configurations spatiales de l'usage du sol, nous faisons l'hypothèse qu'il existe un lien entre ces configurations spatiales et la réalisation des FAE, résultant de conditions influençant ces processus. Notre méthode se caractérise par la prise en compte de multiples fonctions, l'articulation de plusieurs niveaux spatiaux, l'utilisation d'analyses spatiales, une confrontation au terrain par des approches empiriques sur deux régions. Nous l'avons testée dans deux NUTS 3, le département du Puy-de-Dôme (France) et la province de Grosseto (Italie) ayant en commun une hétérogénéité de conditions agro-environnementales (plaines céréalières / élevage extensif en montagne) et d'importantes différences (climat, occupation du sol). Ces régions montrent une réalisation semblable des FAE aux niveaux de la petite région et d'entités paysagères. Le cas français présente une forte variabilité de réalisation des FAE, relativement groupées dans l'espace ; de ce fait, la prise en compte des configurations spatiales apporte peu de nuances supplémentaires pour appréhender la réalisation des FAE dans des espaces restreint. Dans le cas italien au contraire, la réalisation des FAE est très variable dans l'espace et cette variabilité est liée aux configurations spatiales qui améliorent la caractérisation de la réalisation des FAE. En conclusion, les configurations spatiales de l'usage du sol semblent plus utiles à la caractérisation de la réalisation des FAE dans des régions où la variabilité spatiale des FAE est importante, comme en zone méditerranéenne

Research topics in crop diversification research at the landscape level: early evidence from a text mining approach

International audienceCrop diversification has many benefits both at the cropping system and the food system levels and has been addressed in agricultural research (Hufnagel et al., 2020). Landscape design and management in agricultural regions can support crop diversification by building bridges with scientific domains like ecology and geography (Benoit et al., 2012). Though, little is known on how the research community has addressed the crop diversification within a landscape perspective. In this paper we investigated a bibliographic corpus retrieved from the Scopus database papers coupling crop diversification and landscape (in title, abstract and keywords), retrieving 461 papers for the period 1990 to 2020. The corpus was analysed using the CorText platform (e.g., Ruiz-Martinez et al., 2015). First, natural language processing was used to extract multi-terms from title, abstract and keywords. Then, we mined the temporal dynamics and co-occurrence of the 100 most frequent terms. Our findings showed that species richness emerges as the main topic in this corpus, and that natural enemies, crop types and natural control increased in importance. In the last years, genetic diversity, climate change and agricultural production also gained attention. On the contrary, land use and some of the terms related to diversity (landscape, plant and farmland) were marginal or decreasing. By analysing the terms co-occurrence on the three decades, we observed that the papers addressing crop varieties and agroforestry system split into two streams: one about agricultural production in relation to climate change and the other about farm size and land use. Instead, the functional diversity and field margin disappeared from the recent literature. Land use patterns and landscape diversity converged mainly on studies about biological pest control. Altogether, the corpus highlighted that the spatial configuration lost in importance when addressing crop diversification. In addition, the species diversity gained in attention finally catching a large part of the literature in the corpus. From a landscape approach perspective, we might point out the apparent lack of a major topic: the involvement of local community and stakeholders. Our simple and rapid text mining approach yielded early evidence of knowledge gaps about the landscape level in crop diversification literature. The expected contribution of approaching the crop diversification at the landscape level would be to provide a relevant framework for the characterisation of the baseline system to be diversified. In particular, the landscape agronomy perspective stressed the need to define the scale and target area for crop diversification consistently with (natural and cultivated) species diversity embedded in a local socio-technical system. References Hufnagel, J., Reckling, M., & Ewert, F. (2020). Diverse approaches to crop diversification in agricultural research. A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 40(2), 1-17.Ruiz-Martinez, I., Marraccini, E., Debolini, M., & Bonari, E. (2015). Indicators of agricultural intensity and intensification: a review of the literature. Italian Journal of Agronomy, 10(2), 74-84.Benoît, M., Rizzo, D., Marraccini, E., Moonen, A. C., Galli, M., Lardon, S., ... & Bonari, E. (2012). Landscape agronomy: a new field for addressing agricultural landscape dynamics. Landscape ecology, 27(10), 1385-1394