Speaker
Description
Agriculture must reconcile food production, energy production and conservation of the environment, while ensuring a fair income to farmers. This requires a shift towards new production systems, based on both ecological intensification and technical innovations, adapted to local conditions and usable by farmers. To address this issue, the French technical institutes on arable crops ARVALIS, Terres Inovia and Institut Technique de la Betterave (ITB), launched a collaborative project called Syppre in 2014 (Toqué et al., 2015). It consists of an experimental network of diversified cropping systems implemented in five locations that are representative of France’s major regions for arable crop production: the deap loamy soils of Picardie, the chalk soils of Champagne, the shallow clay-limestone soils of Berry, the clay-limestone hillsides of Lauragais and the humus-rich soils of Béarn. For each site, we have verified that the reference system is the dominant system of the representativeness area (Galano et al. 2024). On each experimental platform we experiment this reference cropping system and one or several innovative systems. The latter have been co-designed with local stakeholders to meet a multi-performance objective defined as follow: profitability and productivity higher than or equal to the reference, and improved environmental performance compared with the reference. They also aim to meet local challenges such as controlling certain weeds or reducing erosion. Environmental and input use performance is measured by indicators such as treatment frequency index (TFI), mineral nitrogen application, greenhouse gases emissions (GHG) emissions and soil organic matter content. Target thresholds have been set to be consistent with public policies: -50 % compared to regional reference for TFI, -20 % for GHG emission (SNBC, 2020).
The multi-criteria evaluation is carried out using the SYSTERRE tool (Casal et al. 2022). To meet the objectives, the innovative systems mobilize and combine several technical solutions based on a systemic approach, such as more diverse rotations including legumes, cover crops and reduced tillage wherever possible.
At the system level, environmental and input use performances reach the expected goal in average for the 7 years of trial, with a reduction in GHG emissions of over 20% compared to the reference system, less mineral nitrogen used, lower TFI on 4 of the 5 platforms, and a positive carbon balance. However, this has been achieved at the expense of economic performance: the profitability of innovative systems is lower than that of reference systems, due to the weight of diversification crops in rotations and their lower productivity (Longis et al. 2024) (see figure attached).
The presentation will detail the results of the innovative Syppre systems and question the cost of implementing agroecological levers for farmers at the exploitation scale. It will illustrate the difficulties encounter by experimentators to answer short term and long-term objectives, and the compromises they have to make each year.
CASAL L, BERRODIER M, JOUY L, WISSOCQ A, ROUILLON C. SYSTERRE: un outil d’évaluation de la multiperformance des systèmes de culture aux multiples usages. Phloème 2022.
GALANO et al. Landscape unit : a framework for discussing the representativeness of cropping system. Under soumission. 18th congress of ESA
LONGIS, et al, 2024. Performance of innovative cropping systems diversified with oilseeds and protein crops: identification and resolution of methodological issues, using the Syppre experimental network as a case study. Oilseeds & fats Crops and Lipids 31: 2
STRATEGIE NATIONALE BAS CARBONE - La transition écologique et solidaire vers la neutralité carbone - Ministère de la Transition Ecologique et Solidaire - Mars 2020 https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/2020-03-25_MTES_SNBC2.pdf
TOQUE C, CADOUX S, PIERSON, P, DUVAL R, TOUPET A-L, FLENET F, CARROUE B, ANGEVIN F, GATE P. 2015. SYPPRE : A project to promote innovations in arable crop production mobilizing farmers and stakeholders and including co-design, ex-ante evaluation and experimentation of multi-service farming systems matching with regional challenges. 5th International Symposium for Farming Systems Design.
| Keywords | Diversification, multiperformance, system experiment |
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