Elisa Marraccini

University of Udine | UNIUD · Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

The LATEST Project aims at providing an exhaustive overview of education and training programs inAgTech as a basis to design multidisciplinary innovative, locally fine-tuned academic programs to develop, implement and adapt AgTech for European agricultural stakeholders – including manufacturers, farmers, public and private technical services – in t...

The landscape is widely identified as a relevant target both by integrative policies and across the disciplines dealing with resource management and territorial planning. Landscape agronomy promotes greater involvement of agricultural sciences in this arena by increasing the attention on the dynamics relating the farming practices to the natural re...

Addressing agriculture at the landscape level leads to dealing with agricultural landscapes, defined here as landscapes that contain mainly agricultural land uses. In this chapter, we focus on how agronomy and other disciplines have addressed to date agriculture beyond field and farm management. The landscape agronomy framework suggests that addres...

Landscape Agronomy is expected to contribute to the observation, understanding and support of agriculture at the landscape level. The conceptual model of Landscape Agronomy was developed to integrate assessment and monitoring beyond the farm level and across multiple temporal and spatial scales. In this chapter, we evaluate the relevance of the Lan...

Regional evaluation of soybean insertion in crop rotations taking into account the agronomic constrains but also cropping systems gross margin before and after including soybean

CONTEXT Mediterranean peri-urban regions have changed considerably in recent decades, leading to different farming system trajectories. The high level of heterogeneity and complexity of these areas are particularly challenging in terms of understanding the ongoing processes and their drivers, including the effects of spatial interactions, in order...

In Europe, there is an increasing interest in pulses both for their beneficial effects in cropping systems and for human health. However, despite these advantages, the acreage dedicated to pulses has been declining and their diversity has reduced, particularly in European temperate regions, due to several social and economic factors. This decline h...

In the Global North, there is an increasing interest in pulses both for their beneficial effects in cropping systems and for human health. However, despite these advantages, the acreage dedi-cated to pulses has been declining and their diversity reduced, particularly in European temperate regions, due to several social and economic factors. This de...

The participative approach ABC'Terre (attenuation of greenhouse gas emissions balance integrating soil carbon storage at the territory scale) tends to establish a plan of action in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the cropping systems of a territory. It has been already applied on 4 pilot territories in the frame of ABC'Terre 2A R&D project,...

The debate on food security has highlighted the connection between periurban farming systems (PFS) and local food systems (LFS) for academic research. Several researchers have called for in-depth analysis of the participation and impact of farmers in LFS, and the systemic innovation perspective can provide relevant analysis of the sustainability of...

Highlights - Efficacy of UAVs and emergence predictive models for weed control has been confirmed. - Combination of time-specific and site-specific weed control provides optimal results. - Use of timely prescription maps can substantially reduce herbicide use. Remote sensing using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for weed detection is a valuable a...

Urban regions require planning tools in order to manage agricultural areas under urban pressure. The aim of our paper is to test an analytical framework that combines both the composition in urban and agricultural land covers and their spatial configuration into four general agri-urban patterns: isolated fields, urban belt fields, periurban agricul...

Use of herbicides needs to be properly managed to balance benefit of reducing harvest loss due to weeds against potential environmental risks. Precision weed control is expected to reduce the quantity of applied herbicide by better targeting the spraying. This can involve several components of weed control, ranging from strategic to tactic decision...

Cover-crops have become mandatory in several vulnerable agricultural areas in Europe to reduce nitrogen leaching and limit soil erosion. Nevertheless, they represent a cost for farmers who would like to optimize their use. This study aims to assess what are the technical actions to be optimized in order to maximize the nitrogen leaching limitation...

Livestock farming systems have an important role in the territorial systems of the Mediterranean, but in the last twenty years the sector has undergone serious changes with an important decrease in the number of farms. The purpose of this study is to show the contribution of a local food certification to the resilience of peri-urban livestock farmi...

Many land use systems in Mediterranean sloping areas risk abandonment because of nonprofitability, while their hydro-geological stability depends on an appropriate management. However, who are the land managers? What are their practices? Our research on the traditional olive groves of the Monte Pisano (Tuscany, Italy) reveals for the first time the...

Although crop diversification is one of the main strategy of agroecological transition, a major obstacle is the lack of local references regarding new crops. Land suitability methods can provide a rapid screening of crop suitability in a region. However, mainstream methods are mainly based on assessing soil and climate suitability, whereas it is fu...

The adoption of precision farming techniques (PFTs) has been widely studied targeting specific PFT or farming systems along with the potential benefits of these PFTs in terms of yield or input use. However, few studies have examined how PFTs are adopted and used at the farm level. In this study a preliminary investigation was made of on-farm PFT us...

RESUME. Pour aborder la complexité des systèmes agricoles et alimentaires dans les territoires, une approche systémique est requise, tant les dynamiques sont inter-reliées et nécessitent des regards croisés. Nous proposons une approche de diagnostic prospectif participatif valorisant la transversalité et l'articulation des échelles. L'itinéraire mé...

Landscapes are formed by the interactions between natural resources and heterogeneous land managers that expect/pursue an increasing variety of ecosystem services. Landscape ecology undoubtedly indicated the landscape as the best level to assess existing services and to support expected improvements. Where agriculture drives local dynamics, a conte...

In low-forested agricultural areas where industrial crops dominate with the objective to maximize yield of every single hectare, setting up of Agroforestry systems (AFS) is often limited to less favoured soils. However, shift to a bioeconomy strategy in these territories expects new revenues from differentiating labels such as better net carbon bal...

Cette communication a pour objectifs de décrire les modalités le parcours de formation à la démarche méthodologique appliquée aux études et à la recherche mis en œuvre en 4ème et 5ème année Agronomie et Territoire, d’ébaucher une évaluation des compétences acquises et de proposer des pistes de travail pour une analyse et un diagnostic approfondis

Agronomists have long expertise in designing new cropping systems to face environmental issues like water resource pollution, soil erosion or biodiversity reduction. They also have designed new theoretical spatial organizations of land use embracing these new cropping systems and analyzed individual farmer constraints for the set-up of these spatia...

Given the heterogeneity and richness of Mediterranean farming systems, it is difficult to assess the nature and causes of observed dynamics based on single case studies. This research identifies case studies conducted on the north and south of the Mediterranean basin to provide a comprehensive overview of the current land and farming system dynamic...

The contribution of small farms to local food supply, food security and food sovereignty is widely acknowledged at a global level. In the particular case of Europe, they often are seen as an alternative to large and specialised farms. Assessing the real role of small farms has been limited by a lack of information, as small farms are frequently omi...

The debates on food security in developed countries have raised questions regarding the capacity of periurban farming systems to provide food for urban dwellers. Attention thus needs to be paid to what kind of food production is performed nearby cities. This study aims at developing a methodology to characterize the food production provided by peri...

Les innovations de rupture prospectées pour l’émergence d’une agriculture numérique et à triple performance mettent en évidence deux nécessités dans le secteur des agroéquipementsi. D’un côté, améliorer la remontée des besoins des agriculteurs pour la mise en place de pratiques conciliant les dimensions économique, environnementale et sociale des p...

To address sustainability challenges of agro-ecosystems located in Mediterranean urban regions, this paper focuses on the multidisciplinary subject of urban agricultural systems. To better understand the diversity and dynamics of peri-urban agro-ecosystems and the main drivers of their sustainability, we compare six case studies located in Southern...

Food concerns are reshaping the links between urban and agricultural dynamics. They are emerging as significant issues at the interface between public policies and local initiatives that are in turn establishing new approaches in urban planning and land use. Food occupies a concomitant position as an agricultural product of periurban areas, the pri...

Food concerns are reshaping the links between urban and agricultural dynamics. They are emerging as significant issues at the interface between public policies and local initiatives that are in turn establishing new approaches in urban planning and land use. Food occupies a concomitant position as an agricultural product of periurban areas, the pri...

European agriculture is undergoing a rapid evolution that challenges agronomic research to scale from field to landscape. In particular, the undergoing processes (e.g. urbanization or land abandonment) and the multiple ecosystems services provided by agricultural areas are requiring to broaden the research at the regional level. Since some decades,...

The decreasing number of farmers and the associated increase in farm and field average size risks to constraint the opportunities for innovative farming system design. Agricultural equipment adoption and management can play a critical role to ensure the whole farm profitability by increasing farming practices efficiency. Hence, it is crucial to und...

Public : Étudiants en BTSA, en formation d’ingénieur, professionnels qui souhaitent mettre à jour leurs connaissances agronomiques et les mobiliser dans leurs activités

Nous présentons une démarche de prospective participative – le jeu de territoire – basée sur l’usage des représentations spatiales aux différentes étapes de diagnostic, scénario d’évolution et pistes d’action. Cette démarche a été déployée dans la région urbaine de Pise (Italie) sur les enjeux de gestion de l’eau et de l’alimentation. Au total, 35...

Farmers manage large areas of landscapes that are altogether designed by heterogeneous actors. Conflicts may eventually arise in complex regions like the Mediterranean where the urban and agricultural actors’ spaces for action easily overlap and concur for the use and management of soil and water. A territorial or landscape perspective is therefore...

Alternative and local food supply chains (ALFSCs) have been indicated as drivers of territorial development through increasing the food security at local scale. The aim of the study is to characterize strategies that periurban farmers adopt to contribute to local food provision through ALFSCs. We surveyed a sample of 55 farmers in the urban region...

This paper presents a study based on the territory game, a participatory prospective method based on the use of spatial representations in three main steps: the diagnosis statement, the development of scenarios and the implementation of action steps. The method involved local stakeholders in an integrated approach to territorial development in the...

The Spring School in Landscape and Territory Agronomy has been organized by an international team of teachers since 2007. The target of landscape agronomy is to address the spatially explicit interactions between farming practices and natural resources at territorial level. It requires an action research approach that we have conducted on different...

Short food supply chains (SFSCs) have been identified as an economic opportunity for agriculture under urban pressure, as well as drivers for more sustainable farming systems. However, few studies have focused on the intensity of periurban farms that participate in such SFSCs, compared with the performance of the other farms. In this paper, we exam...

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 activ...

In literature periurban agriculture has been assessed for its capacity to provide different services, e.g. environmental or social. The recent debates on the development of Local Food Systems and the emergence in several countries of food policies and plans have raised questions about the capacity of agriculture to assure food provision to urban co...

In literature periurban agriculture has been assessed for its capacity to provide different services, e.g. environmental or social. The recent debates on the development of Local Food Systems and the emergence in several countries of food policies and plans have raised questions about the capacity of agriculture to assure food provision to urban co...

Land use and land cover change (LULCC) dynamics have been particularly strong in the Mediterranean region, due to its historical development and to agro-pedoclimatic conditions favorable to human settlement. This area has undergone in the 1950s and the 1980s intense urbanization processes that has followed different trajectories. Urban expansion co...

L’objectif de la communication est de présenter comment nous avons utilisé une démarche de prospective participative basée sur l’usage des représentations spatiales, pour d’une part valider les résultats de recherche du programme ANR-DAUME sur Pise (Italie) et d’autre part mobiliser les acteurs de la région urbaine de Pise dans la perspective d’un...

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 meth...

Designing a participatory territorial project is a complex issue: involving the actors concerned requires in fact to deal with different scales of action and to coordinate the local initiatives with existing wide-level policies. As researchers in landscape agronomy and spatial planning, we are interested in developing methodologies to facilitate su...

Land use and land cover change (LULCC) dynamics have been particularly strong in the Mediterranean region, due to its historical development and to agro-pedoclimatic conditions favorable to human settlement. This area has undergone in the 1950s and the 1980s intense urbanization processes that has followed different trajectories. Urban expansion co...

L’agronomie des territoires vise la spatialisation des perspectives de scientifiques et de gestionnaires afin de construire un processus partagé d’aménagement durable des territoires. La prise en compte de la gouvernance territoriale dans la mise en œuvre des principes de l’écologie du paysage est l’une de ses dimensions innovantes (Benoît, Rizzo e...

Introduzione – La comprensione e il miglioramento delle interazioni tra agricoltura e risorse naturali richiedono l'analisi della configurazione dei diversi patterns che compongono un territorio. Analogamente all'ecologia del paesaggio, che studia le relazioni tra mosaici ambientali e processi ecologici su larga scala, l'agronomia territoriale prop...