Michel Duru

How to implement biodiversity-based agriculture to enhance ecosystem services: a review

Intensive agriculture has led to several drawbacks such as biodiversity loss, climate change, erosion, and pollution of air and water. A potential solution is to implement management practices that increase the level of provision of ecosystem services such as soil fertility and biological regulation. There is a lot of literature on the principles of agroecology. However, there is a gap of knowledge between agroecological principles and practical applications. Therefore, we review here agroecological and management sciences to identify two facts that explain the lack of practical applications: (1) the occurrence of high uncertainties about relations between agricultural practices, ecological processes, and ecosystem services, and (2) the site-specific character of agroecological practices required to deliver expected ecosystem services. We also show that an adaptive-management approach, focusing on planning and monitoring, can serve as a framework for developing and implementing learning tools tailored for biodiversity-based agriculture. Among the current learning tools developed by researchers, we identify two main types of emergent support tools likely to help design diversified farming systems and landscapes: (1) knowledge bases containing scientific supports and experiential knowledge and (2) model-based games. These tools have to be coupled with well-tailored field or management indicators that allow monitoring effects of practices on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Finally, we propose a research agenda that requires bringing together contributions from agricultural, ecological, management, and knowledge management sciences, and asserts that researchers have to take the position of “integration and implementation sciences.”

Designing agroecological transitions; A review

Concerns about the negative impacts of productivist agriculture have led to the emergence of two forms of ecological modernisation of agriculture. The first, efficiency-substitution agriculture, aims to improve input use efficiency and to minimise environmental impacts of modern farming systems. It is currently the dominant modernisation pathway. The second, biodiversity-based agriculture, aims to develop ecosystem services provided by biological diversity. It currently exists only as a niche. Here we review challenges of implementing biodiversity-based agriculture: managing, at the local level, a consistent transition within and among farming systems, supply chains and natural resource management. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of existing conceptual frameworks developed to analyse farming, social-ecological and socio-technical systems. Then we present an integrative framework tailored for structuring analysis of agriculture from the perspective of developing a territorial biodiversity-based agriculture. In addition, we propose a participatory methodology to design this agroecological transition at the local level. This design methodology was developed to support a multi-stakeholder arena in analysing the current situation, identifying future exogenous changes and designing (1) targeted territorial biodiversity-based agriculture, (2) the pathway of the transition and (3) the required adaptive governance structures and management strategies. We conclude by analysing key challenges of designing such a complex transition, developing multi-actor and multi-domain approaches based on a combination of scientific and experiential knowledge and on building suitable boundary objects (computer-based and conceptual models, indicators, etc.) to assess innovative systems designed by stakeholders.

Plant trait–digestibility relationships across management and climate gradients in permanent grasslands

1. Dry matter digestibility is a critical component of herbage nutritive value, a major service delivered by grasslands. The aim of this study was to test whether the dominance hypothesis applies to assess the impacts of environmental gradients and management regimes on thiscomponent of herbage nutritive value in permanent grasslands. 2. At the plant level, digestibility has been related to a number of functional traits, but whether this can be scaled up to the community level in species-rich grasslands and how such relationships are modulated by environmental conditions and management regimes remainunknown. Our primary objective was to test whether community-weighted means – species trait values weighted by the species abundance – of morphological, phenological and chemical traits could be used to explain variations in digestibility over a large range of climatic contexts,soil resource levels and management regimes. Our second objective was to explain variations in community digestibility within and among nine contrasting sites along large natural and man-induced environmental gradients.3. Over the whole data set, digestibility and most community-weighted means of traits responded to climatic factors and management regimes, but relations were not always significant when each site was considered separately. Community digestibility was significantly related to one or more plant traits within each site and to all of the measured traits when considering all the sites. Leaf dry matter content (LDMC) had the most consistent effects on digestibility, with a strikingly similar negative effect within each site. Potential evapotranspiration was negatively related to digestibility and contributed to explain a large part of the among-site variance. In addition, a low return interval of disturbance and a high disturbance intensity (biomass removal) were both associated with a high digestibility.4. Synthesis and applications. Disturbance regime, plant traits and local climate impacted dry matter digestibility roughly equally in grasslands. The effects of community composition on digestibility and its response to abiotic factors could be successfully captured by community weightedmeans of leaf dry matter content. This functional marker can be used to develop indicators and grassland management rules to support farmers in the refinement of their practices towards specific needs, such as target production outputs.

Livestock system sustainability and resilience in intensive production zones: which form of ecological modernization?

Abstract Changes in agriculture during the twentieth century led to high levels of food production based on increasing inputs and specialization of farms and agricultural regions. To address negative externalities of these changes, two forms of ecological modernization of agriculture are promoted: “weak” ecological modernization, mainly based on increasing input efficiency through crop and animal monitoring and nutrient recycling, and “strong” ecological modernization, based on increasing agrobiodiversity at different space and time scales and within or among farms to develop ecosystem services and in turn reduce industrial inputs even more. Because characterizing the sustainability of these two forms of ecological modernization remains an issue, we review the literature on livestock systems to compare their advantages and drawbacks. After defining the livestock system as a local social–ecological system embedded in a complex multi-level and multi-domain system, we characterize the two forms of ecological modernization (weak vs. strong). When sustainability is defined as a state that should be maintained at a certain level and assessed through a set of indicators (environmental, economic, and social), we highlight that one ecological modernization form might have an advantage for certain sustainability criteria, but a disadvantage for others. When sustainability is viewed as a process (resilience), we find that these two forms of ecological modernization are based on different properties: governance of the entire agri-food chain for weak ecological modernization versus local governance of agriculture and its biophysical and social diversity and connectivity, and management of slow variables for strong ecological modernization. The relevance of this sustainability-analysis approach is illustrated by considering different types of dairy livestock systems, organic agriculture and integrated crop–livestock systems.

Crop–livestock integration beyond the farm level: a review

Paradoxically, the number of crop–livestock farms is declining across Europe, despite the fact that crop-livestock farms are theoretically optimal to improve the sustainability of agriculture. To solve this issue, crop–livestock integration may be organized beyond the farm level. For instance, local groups of farmers can negotiate land-use allocation patterns and exchange materials such as manure, grain, and straw. Development of such a collective agricultural system raises questions, rarely documented in the literature, about how to integrate crops and livestock among farms, and the consequences, impacts, and conditions of integrating them. Here, we review the different forms of crop–livestock integration beyond the farm level, their potential benefits, and the features of decision support systems (DSS) needed for the integration process. We identify three forms of crop–livestock integration beyond the farm level: local coexistence, complementarity, and synergy, each with increasingly stronger temporal, spatial, and organizational coordination among farms. We claim that the forms of integration implemented define the nature, area, and spatial configuration of crops, grasslands, and animals in farms and landscapes. In turn, these configurations influence the provision of ecosystem services. For instance, we show that the synergy form of integration promotes soil fertility, erosion control, and field-level biological regulation services through organizational coordination among farmers and spatiotemporal integration between crops, grasslands, and animals. We found that social benefits of the synergy form of integration include collective empowerment of farmers. We claim that design of the complementarity and synergy forms of crop–livestock integration can best be supported by collective participatory workshops involving farmers, agricultural consultants, and researchers. In these workshops, spatialized simulation modeling of crop–livestock integration among farms is the basis for achieving the upscaling process involved in integrating beyond the farm level. Facilitators of these workshops have to pay attention to the consequences on governance and equity issues within farmers groups.

Designing crop–livestock integration at different levels: Toward new agroecological models?

Integrated crop–livestock systems have been shown to improve nutrient cycling, particularly by re-coupling nitrogen and carbon cycles. Yet the number of mixed crop–livestock farms has been falling steadily in Europe. Integration between crops and livestock at the local level, through exchanges between already specialised farms, is rarely implemented. Given the lack of knowledge on new ways to maintain or to reintegrate crops and livestock from the farm up to the local level, concrete guidelines are needed. In this paper, we developed a transversal analysis of three complementary case studies regarding development of crop–livestock integration at the farm and beyond farm level. To this aim, we reviewed three French case studies in which participatory approaches were used to design scenarios of crop–livestock integration. When crop–livestock integration disappears from the farm level due to labour organisation, exchanges between specialised crop farmers and livestock farmers is a way to redevelop such integration at the local level. Transversal analysis of case-studies allowed us to suggest guidelines for further research regarding the design of agroecological crop–livestock integration. Articulating options of change at farm level and collective level allows to consider the appropriate level of design and trade-offs between (1) farm and beyond farm level, and (2) social, environmental and economic dimensions. Considering these different levels of organisation is needed to identify possible pathways to and policy incentives for integrated crop–livestock systems. Developing specific Decision Support Systems and participative research is needed to conceive locally adapted scenarios of crop-livestock integration.

Mutual learning between researchers and farmers during implementation of scientific principles for sustainable development: the case of biodiversity-based agriculture

A part of scientific knowledge that aims to promote sustainable development consists in management principles of complex systems. Its implementation requires a precise understanding of the situation of action and of the actors’ involvement in the situation. It can no longer be thought of in terms of transfer. Successful implementation relies on changing the ways of understanding and valuing the local context, as well as the actors’ practices. Transdisciplinary approaches are proposed to facilitate mutual learning between researchers and local actors that lead to a better understanding of the action situation. We explore the benefits of such approaches and their implications for those involved in the field of agroecology. Agroecology is based on the implementation of scientific principles that aim to make agriculture more sustainable. These include the creation of agricultural production based on biodiversity. Analysis of three case studies concerning the biodiversification of forage production shows that implementation is not getting farmers involved in the researcher’s project, but rather that researcher’s intentions find a place in the farmer’s projects. Researchers adapt their scientific production to the farmer’s needs while farmers review their goals and means as a result of these interactions. The result is a better understanding of the situation to be transformed by both researchers and farmers. This new insight justifies making implementation an integral part of the scientific approach. However, both researchers and farmers committed to the situation need to be ready to leave their comfort zone.