The general purpose of the primary and secondary data available in this article is to support an integrated assessment of scenarios of crop-livestock integration at the territorial level i.e. of ...exchanges between arable and livestock farms. The data is a result of a research collaboration between the scientist from INRAE, agricultural advisers from Chamber of Agriculture of Pays de la Loire (CRAPL) and a collective of five arable and two livestock farmers located in the district of Pays de Pouzauges (Vendée department, western France). All participants formed part of the DiverIMPACTS project (https://www.diverimpacts.net/) that aims to achieve the full potential of diversification of cropping systems for improved productivity, delivery of ecosystem services and resource-efficient and sustainable value chains in Europe. The first dataset corresponds to the inputs of MAELIA (http://maelia-platform.inra.fr/), a spatial agent-based simulation platform that was used to support an iterative design and assessment of scenarios to redesign cropping systems. The second dataset corresponds to the outputs of MAELIA simulations and the associated indicators at the farm, group and territory level. The data comprise multiple shape and csv files characterizing the edaphic-climatic heterogeneity of the territory and cropping systems, farmers’ crop management rules (IF-THEN rules) and general information about the farms (e.g. crops, agricultural equipment, average crop yields). Data is reported for the baseline situation and three exchange scenarios containing different innovative cropping systems co-designed by scientists, agricultural advisers and the farmers. The data presented here can be found in the Portail Data INRA repository (https://doi.org/10.15454/3ZTCF5) and were used in the research article “Fostering local crop-livestock integration via legume exchanges using an innovative integrated assessment and modelling approach: MAELIA” 1.
Facing the ecological and social crisis that the agrifood systems cross, a profound transformation of food systems is required, necessitating systemic and sustainable innovations. Sustainability ...assessments are generally performed to identify and/or validate the improvement in sustainability conferred by a designed artifact relative to the current or standard situation. However, they can have many other benefits in the design process. Here, we review the place, role, and conditions of use of sustainability assessment in innovation design processes in agrifood systems. By cross-referencing published findings and our own experience, we formalize a design process highlighting the place of sustainability assessment, whether design is intended for the creation of an agricultural or food artifact. We identify three types of assessment: initial diagnosis, screening between solutions at the ideation stage, and evaluation at the prototyping and development stages. We discuss ways of performing each of these assessments and highlight general key points about sustainability assessment. A first set of key points relate to criteria and indicators, a second set to the role of stakeholders, a third one to the adaptive nature of the assessment, and the last one to the uncertainty consideration. These key points provide guidance for efficient assessment in the design of innovations to increase the sustainability of agrifood systems. Thus, we demonstrate that the design process of innovations for sustainable agrifood systems requires (1) to formalize the place and mode of assessment, (2) to make use of relevant sustainability criteria and indicators, (3) to reinforce participatory practices, and (4) to adapt the assessment to the context of the designed artifact, to facilitate choices between imperfect solutions. Such an approach aims to promote innovations that meet the expectations of the system’s direct stakeholders, but also integrate the needs of invisible actors such as the environment or the well-being of populations.
The growing concern about side-effects of policies focusing on economic growth or even technological innovations, as well as agriculture intensification leads more and more stakeholders to pay ...attention to the questions of monitoring and evaluation of agricultural practices. This step of evaluation is now essential in policy decision, in research and design of innovative solutions, in NGOs' development projects, as well as in improvement process in ISO certification. The aim of this article is to review steps in the evaluation of sustainability in agriculture, starting in a first section with the necessity to develop a conceptual indicator framework to precise evaluators' own vision of sustainability. In a second section, we address the necessity to answer preliminary questions that will guide the selection of a set of indicators or an assessment method. In a third section, after discussing the way to categorize indicators, we provide an overview of available indicators for two sustainability themes of the environmental dimension regarding respectively nitrogen management and biodiversity. In a fourth section, we highlight the diversity of evaluation methods of sustainability through six examples in France. Finally we conclude the article with a general discussion on questions that remain to address.
Crop diversification is now well-recognised as a strong lever to address the environmental challenges currently faced by agriculture. Connecting and fostering local exchanges between specialised ...arable crop and livestock farms can support the diversification of crops and relocate animal feeding with local protein (vs. soya supplements). However, the trade-offs and synergies between individual and collective objectives and performances generated by this system are still largely unknown. Innovative tools that consider the spatiotemporal heterogeneity underpinning the daily functioning of farms are needed to explore the implications of exchange scenarios.
To assess self-sufficiency, sustainability and vulnerability at the farm, group (arable vs. livestock) and territorial levels considering the baseline situation and scenarios that increase synergy between arable and livestock farms.
We demonstrated the utility of using MAELIA, a spatial agent-based integrated modelling framework, to support iterative design and assessment of self-sufficiency, sustainability and vulnerability of such scenarios. MAELIA was applied to model a collective of five arable and two livestock farmers in western France. In a participatory approach, scientists, agricultural advisers and the farmers co-designed three possible scenarios of legume exchanges.
Only the most ambitious scenario based on strong collaboration allowed farmers to reach local protein self-sufficiency while reducing the variability in five of the seven indicators used to assess farm performances. Meeting livestock farms' demand for legumes had a positive influence on socio-economic performance at the territorial level, including an increase in the mean gross margin (of 71 €/ha; 4% higher), decrease in the use of nitrogen fertiliser (of ca. 21 kg N/ha; 11% lower) and decrease in labour time (of ca. 12 min/ha; 5% lower). No major trade-offs between self-sufficiency and vulnerability were observed. However, there were distinct individual performances related to the degree of changes imposed on each farm.
We show that by reducing the dependence to external inputs, these systems are promising alternatives to an environmentally sustainable, resilient and economically viable agroecological transition. The development of dedicated institutional support for direct bilateral or multilateral agreements, and specific financial and technical support would encourage farmers to join such initiatives and redesign their farming systems.
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•Scenarios of exchanges that incorporate increasing spatial and temporal coordination between farmers were designed through a participatory approach•The MAELIA IAM platform was used to support their assessment, considering interacting heterogeneities (pedoclimatic, rotation, crop management)•Seven indicators of self-sufficiency, sustainability and vulnerability were used to assess trade-offs between individual and collective performances•Only a strong farmers' synergy reaches local protein self-sufficiency and higher gross margins while reducing the systems' variability•No major trade-offs between self-sufficiency and vulnerability were observed however there were contrasting farmers' performances
For arable crops, weeds are the most harmful pests among those targeted by pesticides. They are also crucial sources of plant biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, and host and feed wild fauna. As ...there is, to date, no curative weed control method as effective as herbicides, reducing herbicide use while limiting the damage to crop production requires combining many partially-efficient cultural practices at the cropping-system scale.
The objectives were to (1) compare the performances and applicability of cropping systems obtained with three contrasting design approaches, aiming at reducing weed harmfulness for crop production and herbicide use, (2) identify the technical determinants of a more sustainable weed management. The design approaches were: (1) de novo design by diverse experts working in five regions, (2) step-by-step improvement of a series of farmers' cropping systems from a single production context over several years; (3) farmer-centred design of one current cropping system by one group of farmers with weed issues, helped with a board game (Mission Ecophyt'eau®) and a decision-support system to evaluate weed impacts (DeciFlorSys).
We assessed (1) weed impacts on crop production and biodiversity by simulating current and innovative cropping systems with the FlorSys model over 30 years and with 10 weather scenarios, (2) sustainability by scoring the economic, social and environmental performances of all systems with the multicriteria evaluation tool DEXiPM. To account for production context, we assessed the differences in indicator values between innovative and current cropping systems (“trajectories”).
The trajectories showed no trade-off between weed harmfulness for crop production and herbicide use intensity. Reduced herbicide use (−1.0 Treatment Frequency Index) was compensated by combining alternative levers targeting weed prevention, particularly crop diversification (+ 3 to 5 new crops on average) and tillage. Changes in weed impacts were greater with expert design than with the two farmer-design approaches. However, social sustainability from farmers' perspective mostly decreased with expert design (6 trajectories out of 9). Moreover, the best trajectories for reconciling low weed harmfulness and low herbicide use with higher sustainability were obtained by farmers after 10 years of step-by-step design (2 trajectories out of 30).
The use of models, board games and decision-support systems in the two farmers' groups showed that bringing new knowledge in different ways is essential to actually change cropping systems. Implicating farmers early in the design process also improved the likelihood to adopt the designed cropping system.
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•We analysed cropping systems designed with 3 approaches to improve weed management and reduce herbicide use.•Expert design changed systems more deeply but farmers could reach similar changes after years of step-by-step design.•There was no trade-off between herbicide use and weed harmfulness: new practices compensated for reduced herbicide use.•Sustainability was stable or increased, except social sustainability from farmers' perspective in case of expert design.•Simulation models were judged useful by farmers during design, notably to understand and assess long-term performances.
•The combination of diversification practices could improve the environmental performances while maintaining economic and social performances at satisfactory levels.•The effect of a combination of ...diversification practices on an indicator depends on their management, the pedo-climatic conditions and the level of the reference.•The conception of diversified cropping systems should be performed on a relatively small scale to answer specific agronomic issues from a given pedo-climatic and economic context, in order to lower the risk of trade-offs or antagonisms between performances.
A major path helping agriculture achieve the dual challenges of production and environmental preservation, consists of transitioning from the current, external input-based, conventional farming systems to a biodiversity-based agricultural system that rely more on ecosystem services. One lever of this transition consists of diversifying agri-food systems using practices such as rotation extension, intercropping (IC), multiple cropping or multi-services cover crops (MSCC) implementation. Here, we investigated to what extent the combination of diversification practices could contribute to the enhancement of the sustainability of current conventional cropping systems through an ex ante evaluation.
We compared the sustainability performances of five diversified (DIV) cropping systems from five major arable crop production regions of France to their local less diversified reference (REF) systems by calculating various criteria and implementing a multi-criteria decision aid model. 76 criteria assessing the three dimensions of sustainability were calculated (10, 17 and 49 criteria for the economic, social and environmental dimensions respectively).
Our analysis showed that the combination of diversification practices could improve the environmental performances while maintaining a priori economic and social performances at satisfactory levels according to the local expert working group. The DIV systems always had lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to their REF systems and often improved air and water quality and above- and belowground biodiversity. However, diversification may also cause drawbacks for some indicators, as negative impacts were observed from, gross margin, NO3 lixiviation, NH3 volatilization or pesticide use, in some cases. Our analysis also suggested that the effect of a combination of diversification practices on an indicator can be either positive or negative according to the pedo-climatic context, the level of performance of the reference and compromises in the management of diversification practices in response to local objectives of performance.
Modern intensive agriculture has to face the challenge of feeding the world's growing population while reducing its environmental impacts. Assessing in an ex ante way the sustainability of innovative ...cropping systems will increase the efficiency of the innovation process. To this aim, DEXiPM (DEXi Pest Management) has been developed for ex ante assessment of the sustainability of arable cropping systems, particularly integrated crop management systems with a limited use of pesticides. It has 75 basic indicators describing the cropping system and the context of the assessment, and 86 aggregated indicators, assessing the usual three dimensions of sustainability in terms of social, environmental and economic issues. DEXiPM was implemented to assess and compare current and innovative winter crop- and maize-based cropping systems for a French region. The evaluation results showed that innovative cropping systems with a limited use of pesticides can have a better overall sustainability, despite the fact that some of the indicators can be negatively impacted. DEXiPM is a relevant tool to evaluate the sustainability of actual cropping systems, to diagnose their strong and weak points and, on this basis, to encourage discussions during the design of innovative cropping systems that will afterwards be tested in fields. The design of DEXiPM is also based on a state of the art on agricultural sustainability which led to point out gaps in knowledge that need to be filled (e.g. the impact of crop management on biodiversity). From the discussions of the design phase and the implementation test, improvements have been highlighted. The version presented here includes them as well as the results of the first feedbacks from users and from an evaluation phase. The coherency of cropping system assessments has been judged by experts and found consistent, constituting the first step of the model evaluation. Sensitivity analysis and comparison with quantitative methods are currently on-going to evaluate the accuracy of the model to rank cropping systems.
Context
Agroecosystems produce food and many other services that are crucial for human well-being. Given the scales at which the processes underlying these services take place, agricultural ...landscapes appear as appropriate spatial units for their evaluation and management. The design of sustainable agricultural landscapes that value these services has thus become a pressing issue but faces major challenges stemming from the diversity of processes, their interactions and the number of scales at stake. Agricultural landscape modelling can provide a key contribution to this design but must still overcome several difficulties to offer reliable tools for decision makers.
Objectives
Our study aimed at shedding light on the main scientific and technical difficulties that make the building of landscape models that may efficiently inform decision-makers a complex task, as well as translating them in terms of challenges that can be further investigated and discussed.
Methods
We examine current issues and challenges and indicate future research needs to overcome the scientific and technical obstacles in the development of useful agricultural landscape models.
Results
We highlight research perspectives to better couple landscape patterns and process models and account for feedbacks, integrate the decisions of multiple stakeholders, consider the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of data and processes, explore alternative landscape organisations and assess multiobjective performance.
Conclusion
Coping with the issues and challenges discussed in this paper should improve our understanding of agroecosystems and give rise to new hypotheses, thereby informing future research.
Realistic assessments of sustainability are often viewed as typical decision-making problems requiring multi-criteria decision-aid (MCDA) methods taking into account the conflicting objectives ...underlying the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability, and the different sources of knowledge representing them. Some MCDA-based studies have resulted in the development of sustainable agricultural systems, but the new challenges facing agriculture and the increasing unpredictability of their driving forces highlight the need for faster ex ante (‘
Before-the-event
’) assessment frameworks. These frameworks should also (i) provide a more realistic assessment of sustainability, by integrating a wider range of informal knowledge,
via
the use of qualitative information; (ii) address alternative scales, such as cropping system level, improving granularity for the handling of sustainability issues and (iii) target a larger panel of decision-makers and contexts. We describe here the MASC model, which is at the center of a framework addressing these objectives. The MASC model has at its core a decision tree that breaks the sustainability assessment decisional problem down into simpler units as a function of sustainability dimensional structure (economic, social and environmental), generating a vector of 32 holistic ‘mixed’ (quantitative and qualitative) elementary criteria rating cropping systems. The assessment process involves the calculation of these criteria, their homogenization into qualitative information for input into the model and their aggregation throughout the decision tree based on ‘
If-Then
’ decision rules, entered by the user. We present the model and describe its first implementation for the evaluation of four cropping systems generated from expert knowledge, and discuss its relevance to the objectives cited above. The MASC model has several advantages over existing methods, due to its ability to handle qualitative information, its transparency, flexibility and feasibility.
Crop diversification represents a key lever to support the development of sustainable agri-food systems. Knowledge on trade-offs and carry over effects from different crop diversification strategies ...is essential to inform agricultural stakeholders of potential costs and benefits. This knowledge is limited by existing data and performance measures predominantly focused on single crops, rather than complete rotations. Moreover, sustainability performance indicators are often used for assessment purposes, rather than supporting stakeholder learning and actions. A new set of 32 indicators was developed to address these needs, and used to evaluate the environmental, economic and social sustainability of the diversified agricultural systems highlighted in the case studies, which are often characterized by data availability constraints. This approach was tested in France, Germany and Italy to determine a critical ex-post diagnosis of the existing systems, and for the assessment of ex-ante innovative scenarios. The results will be used to support these case studies in the identification and design of more sustainable agricultural systems. Although the framework is based on feasible and proxy indicators, the assessment outcomes have allowed local actors to reflect on the effects generated by the implemented crop diversification strategies. Key issues include trade-offs occurring between optimizing economic and environmental performance.
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