Given the need to reduce pesticide use and rising consumer demand for healthy food, organic vineyard areas have increased since 2000. Converting to organic farming requires numerous changes in pest ...and disease management, fertilization and weeding techniques. These changes can lead to difficulties in sustaining yields. Some studies have highlighted higher yields in conventional farming than in organic agriculture, but knowledge on yield dynamics during conversion is lacking. A set of 26 plots, under conventional management and in conversion to organic farming, were monitored from 2013 to 2016 in southern France throughout the three-year conversion phase to investigate the dynamics of grape yield and yield components. The survey showed that the yield and yield components remained similar levels as in conventional farming from the third year of conversion. However, the first two years of conversion were a transitional and less successful period during which yield and yield components decreased. Based on the in-depth analysis of the yield components, we have put forwards hypotheses on the processes at play and technical advice that could support winegrowers as they convert to organic farming.
Since 2006, an increasing number of French vineyards have chosen to convert to organic farming. One major change in vineyard practices includes replacing chemical pesticides with copper and ...sulfur-based products in line with Council Regulation (EC) No. 834/2007. This change can make overall management and pest and disease control more difficult and potentially lead to yield losses. From 2013 to 2016, a network of 48 vineyard plots, in southern France, under conventional management and in conversion to organic farming were monitored throughout the three-year conversion phase to investigate the grapevine phytosanitary management of four major pests and diseases and variations in control efficiency. The severity of downy and powdery mildew, grape berry moths, and Botrytis bunch rot were assessed and linked to the protection strategy. The findings showed that pests and diseases were controlled in the third year of conversion at similar efficiency levels as in conventional farming. However, the first two years of conversion were a transitional and less successful period during which higher incidences of cryptogamic diseases were observed. This demonstrates a need for winegrowers to receive more in-depth technical advice and support, especially on pest and disease control, during this critical transition period.
An increasing number of vineyards are converting to organic farming due to concerns about the environmental impacts of agriculture. How difficult this shift is depends on farms’ biophysical and ...economic situations as well as on their specific dynamics. Methods to analyze, assess, and support transition strategies are needed. In this context, the hypothesis can be made that the efficiency-substitution-redesign approach, which is used for describing the level, intensity, and speed of changes made by vineyards, could be used to classify transition strategies. On-farm interviews and surveys were conducted at vineyards in conversion to organic farming in two French winegrowing regions: Languedoc and Bordeaux. The agronomic changes made to various grape production technical operations during the conversion period were described and assessed by using the efficiency-substitution-redesign approach. Potential economic consequences of conversion were measured by looking at farms’ accounting records. Considering the high number of variables taken into account in the detailed analysis of each operation for the conversion to organic farming, the efficiency-substitution-redesign approach was successfully used to classify transition strategies according to the type of changes made. The results showed that change intensity varied between farms with no clear correlation between the type of changes and economic consequences. Farm trajectories were then correlated to the speed and intensity of changes with quantitative transition indicators. Here, a quantitative application of the efficiency-substitution-redesign approach was used for the first time to assess and classify organic farming conversion strategies according to a scale of change intensity and speed of changes. These results are essential to enhance understanding of what happens during conversion to organic farming and to better support winegrowers’ trajectories.
In response to the sustainability issues that agriculture faces in advanced economies, agroecology has gained increasing relevance in scientific, political, and social debates. This has promoted ...discussion about transitions to agroecology, which represents a significant advancement. Accordingly, it has become a growing field of research. We reviewed the literature on and in support of farm transitions to agroecology in advanced economies in order to identify key research challenges and suggest innovative research paths. Our findings can be summarized as follows: (1) Research that supports exploration and definition of desired futures, whether based on future-oriented modeling or expert-based foresight approaches, should more explicitly include the farm level. It should stimulate the creativity and design ability of farmers and other stakeholders, and also address issues of representation and power among them. (2) Research that creates awareness and assesses farms before, during or after transition requires more holistic and dynamic assessment frameworks. These frameworks need to be more flexible to adapt to the diversity of global and local challenges. Their assessment should explicitly include uncertainty due to the feedback loops and emergent properties of transitions. (3) Research that analyzes and supports farms during transition should focus more on the dynamics of change processes by valuing what happens on the farms. Research should especially give more credence to on-farm experiments conducted by farmers and develop new tools and methods (e.g., for strategic monitoring) to support these transitions. This is the first review of scientific studies of farm transitions to agroecology. Overall, the review indicates that these transitions challenge the system boundaries, temporal horizons, and sustainability dimensions that agricultural researchers usually consider. In this context, farm transitions to agroecology require changes in the current organization and funding of research in order to encourage longer term and more adaptive configurations.
Farming systems are complex and include a variety of interacting biophysical and technical components. This complexity must be taken into account when designing farming systems to improve ...sustainability, but more methods are needed to be able to do so. This article seeks to apply the Hierarchical Patch Dynamics theory (HPD) to farming systems to understand farming system complexity and be better able to support farming system re-design. A six-step framework is proposed to adapt the HPD theory to farming system analysis by taking into account (i) spatial and temporal interactions and (ii) field and management diversity. This framework was applied to a vineyard case study. The result was a hierarchical formalization of the farming system. The HPD framework improved understanding and enabled the formalization of (i) the hierarchical structure of the farming system, (ii) the interactions between structure and processes and (iii) scaling up and down from field to farm scale. HPD theory proved to be successful in analyzing farming system complexity at the farm scale. The framework can help with specific aspects of farming system design, such as how to change the scale of study or determining which scale should be used when choosing indicators for crop management and integrating multi-scale constraints and processes.
Duru et al. (Agron Sustain Dev 35:1259-1281, 2015) highlighted a missing tool for studying and improving the performance of cropping systems in the transition to highly diversified agriculture. In ...response, this paper proposes a concept for designing, modeling, monitoring, and auditing desired ecosystem services, in intercropping and agroforestry systems. We have labelled this concept ESSU (Ecosystem Services functional Spatial Unit). It delimits the smallest spatial unit encompassing all the interacting species and other functional components (e.g., crops, trees, livestock, spontaneous vegetation, semi-natural habitats such as hedges, ditches, forest patches, and animals) that together provide a specified set of ecosystem services. The novel ESSU concept allows representation of an entire diversified agroecosystem by the repetition of the spatial unit that provides the same sets of targeted ecosystem services as the agroecosystem it represents. It can then be used for various activities, such as the (i) design of more efficient agroecological systems according to the targeted ecosystem services; (ii) rapid audit of farming practices for biodiversity/resilience across large tracts of farmland as part of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 targets of sustainable food systems; and (iii) modeling such diversified agroecosystems using a motif adapted to represent the targeted ecosystem services and the species spacing design. We demonstrate that the ESSU concept is highly flexible and applicable to a wide range of diversified agroecosystems, like arable intercropping, crop-tree intercropping, tree-tree agroforestry, and agro-pastoralism. We also show its relevance and suitability for representing temporal changes over 1 year, across several years, and over decades, indicating its generalizability and flexibility. We argue that ESSU could open new theoretical and practical research avenues for the study of diversified agroecosystems. Considered with all the knowledge available on practices, biodiversity, and ecosystem services, ESSU might provide a learning-support tool to fill the knowledge gap about relationships among practices, biodiversity, and associated ecosystem services.
Highlights: • Conversion to organic farming involves a period of important technical changes. • A synchronic analysis of conversion was performed in a vineyard network. • A transitional period was ...observed during the 1st and 2nd years of the conversion. • Nitrogen stress, water stress and pest and disease incidences limited yield. • Learning and adjustments of the practices were observed.Abstract: Numerous studies have emphasized the necessity for major transitions in agriculture. Organic farming is presented as a way to limit the environmental impact of agriculture and produce healthier food. While studies often compare the performance of organic farming to that of conventional farming, there is a lack of knowledge on the conversion period. The present work explores the dynamics of practices employed during the conversion to organic farming and the impact of this transition on various compartments of the agrosystem. From 2013 to 2016, a regional agronomic diagnosis was performed on a network of 48 vineyard plots * year situations in southern France that are either under conventional management or are transitioning to organic farming. An inventory of practices was performed, and various indicators for the agrosystem status were monitored to investigate the changes that occur during the conversion to organic farming. The results of this study showed that the conversion involves a transitional period during which practices change and are adjusted from year to year. All the compartments of the agrosystem studied are impacted by these changes. Yield reductions observed in the first and second years of conversion could be related to the dynamics of pest and disease severity, decreases in nitrogen status and increases in water stress. Pest and disease control and soil management are key practices that must be mastered to limit the impact of conversion on production. This study shows that knowledge and in-depth support are needed before and during conversion to limit the impact of this transitional period and make the conversion successful.Graphical Abstract: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1161030123003362-ga1.jpg
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