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Introduction
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January 2010 - present
Education
September 2000 - August 2003
Publications
Publications (61)
Reactive nitrogen (N) is a key agricultural input, essential for crop growth and production, but excess N in the environment causes problems for human and ecological health. One of the most promising solutions for reducing environmental impacts of excess N levels and feeding a growing population is to improve N efficiency of farming systems i.e., i...
Crop diversification is one of the main mechanisms identified for developing a more sustainable agriculture. Legumes are interesting diversifying crops to add to crop rotations because of their many positive impacts on agronomic systems. Nonetheless, production of these crops remains relatively low in Europe, in part because of socio-economic facto...
Biodiversity-based cropping systems are an interesting option to address the many challenges that agriculture faces. However, benefits of these systems should not obscure the fact that creating biodiversity-based cropping systems represents a major change for farmers. To address this challenge, we argue that designing biodiversity-based cropping sy...
CONTEXT
Implementing alternative practices to the use of pesticides involves work issues that can limit adoption of these practices, particularly on dairy farms. Depending on how practices change, work organization may completely change, additional skills and knowledge may be required, and system complexity may increase, inducing a higher mental wo...
CONTEXT: Reconnecting crop and livestock production beyond the farm gate by exchanging raw materials (e.g., feed, manure) between farms is seen as a promising solution for improving the environmental performance of farms, since it should reduce the use of imported nitrogen (N) inputs. However, such a circular economy does not necessarily lead to a...
Plusieurs dimensions liées au travail peuvent limiter l’adoption et la mise en œuvre de pratiques alternatives visant à réduire l'utilisation des pesticides dans les exploitations laitières, soumises à de fortes contraintes de travail, notamment de travail d’astreinte. Les changements de pratiques peuvent perturber l'organisation du travail, nécess...
Pour favoriser l'apprentissage de l'agroécologie, le jeu sérieux SEGAE (SErious Game for AgroEcology) a été construit. Ce jeu de simulation en ligne représente une ferme de polyculture-élevage dans laquelle le joueur (par exemple, un étudiant en formation agricole) peut mettre en œuvre des pratiques agroécologiques puis en analyser les impacts en t...
This article presents data designed by European researchers who performed a literature review and interpreted the results to determine impact factors of many agroecological practices on a wide variety of sustainability indicators. The impact factors are represented in a matrix that connects practices to indicators. The indicators are related to env...
CONTEXT
There is growing evidence that agroecology can reconcile the environmental, economic, and social pillars of agricultural sustainability. However, teaching and learning agroecology is challenging, especially since most agricultural graduate programs in Europe are not adapted to teach the diversity of its related practices.
OBJECTIVE
To impr...
Agricultural specialization is linked with negative environmental impact. The SYNERGY bio-economic model studies promising levers to limit these impacts: expand of legumes production and exchanges of crops and manure between farms. SYNERGY is a regional model that includes specialized farm types and models exchanges of crops (including legumes) and...
Agricultural specialization is linked with negative environmental impact. The SYNERGY bioeconomic model studies promising levers to limit these impacts: expand of legumes production
and exchanges of crops and manure between farms. SYNERGY is a regional model that includes
specialized farm types and models exchanges of crops (including legumes) and...
The European Union relies on imports to meet the protein requirements of its livestock. Regions specialized in livestock production suffer even more from a deficit in protein self-sufficiency. Legumes represent an interesting source of plant protein. However, despite public policies promoting legume production, their use in animal feed remains limi...
Dominant agricultural systems contribute to environmental degradations such as the reduction of biodiversity, the simplification of landscapes, the contamination of water, the emission of greenhouse gases or the decline in soil quality. Crop diversification can contribute to alleviate these impacts. Increasing plant diversity is possible through ma...
Agricultural specialization has disconnected crop and livestock production in many farms and regions. As a result, crop farms are deficient in nitrogen to fertilize their crops, while livestock farms are deficient in proteins to feed their animals. The increased consumption of nitrogen rich input raised economics and environmental questions. In thi...
European agriculture is facing many challenges and agroecology is considered as a pertinent option to reconcile the various pillars of agricultural sustainability. To promote its application, agroecological concepts should be taught to students and professionals in the agricultural sector. However, most agricultural courses are not adapted to teach...
Agroecology represents a pertinent option to improve the sustainability of agriculture. To promote its application, agroecological concepts should be taught to students and professionals in the agricultural sector. However, most agricultural courses are not adapted to teach these concepts due to little interactivity or interdisciplinarity, and a la...
Les pertes d’azote ont des impacts majeurs sur l’environnement et la santé humaine. L’amélioration de l’efficience d’utilisation de l’azote et la réduction de l’excédent du bilan azoté sont des priorités pour l’agriculture. Nous proposons de nouveaux indicateurs plus pertinents que ceux existants afin d’évaluer les systèmes de production sur leur c...
In the European Union (EU), local production of protein crops (faba bean, field pea, lupins) is of primary interest to help farmers depend less on purchased feed, provide agronomic benefits to cropping systems, and increase the EU’s protein self-sufficiency. Nonetheless, farmers rarely grow protein crops, which currently represent less than 1% of t...
Agricultural soil microbial communities are largely impacted by agronomic practices, soil physicochemical properties and climatic conditions. To understand how these factors induce changes in fungal and bacterial communities in soil, we used a metabarcoding approach to profile the microbial communities of 31 agricultural wheat fields with maize as...
Afin de développer une agriculture plus respectueuse de l'environnement, et capable de nourrir la population, les interactions entre le sol et les plantes sont un levier prometteur. En effet, les plantes sont capables de modifier profondément leur environnement racinaire, la rhizosphère, soit directement soit indirectement en établissant des liens...
This paper presents data collected from 38 integrated crop-livestock farming systems in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, France, during face-to-face surveys. Surveys were conducted using a quantitative questionnaire to collect information about farm management practices that affect nitrogen (N) inputs, N outputs, and internal N flows. The data were used...
Organic cropping systems are often identified as a solution to reduce environmental issues resulting from over-simplified cropping systems relying on a high amount of external inputs. Since in organic cropping systems legume crops are often included to provide nitrogen to the cropping system, they also provide more local proteins in dense animal pr...
In Western France, high amounts of imported protein is used to feeding animals. The development of legume and protein-rich (LPR) crops may be an option to compensate the lack of protein autonomy. A bio-economic model is proposed to assess the environmental and economic impacts of LPR crop implementation at regional scale. The main added values of t...
Over the past 20 years in FRA, oilseed flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) has usually been grown on less than 20 000 ha per year while needs of the French linseed sector are estimated at around 30 000 ha per year. In this article we identify ways to increase the cultivation of oilseed flax in FRA. Forty-seven linseed producers were surveyed in January 2...
Improving nitrogen (N) efficiency is a priority for increasing food production while reducing its environmental impacts. N efficiency indicators are needed to achieve this goal, but current indicators have some limitations. In particular , current N efficiency indicators are not appropriate tools to compare farming systems with different types of p...
The improvement of nitrogen (N) efficiency is a major way to enhance the productivity and reduce the environmental impacts of farming systems. Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) is the most widely used indicator to assess N efficiency in farming systems, but presents several limitations. Importantly, it does not allow comparing farms with different crop...
Reactive nitrogen (N) flows (all forms of N except N2) are greatly increasing worldwide. This is mainly due to the ever larger use of inorganic N fertilizers used to sustain the growing food production. N flows have major impacts on water, air and soil quality as well as on biodiversity and human health. Reconciling the objectives of feeding the wo...
DEXi Practical Case Studies are part of the academic course of students in their last year of training in agricultural engineering. Using DEXi generic software, students were asked to create a hierarchical cluster tree as a tool for evaluating the sustainability of farming systems based on multiple criteria. This training strategy is wide-ranging i...
Current and future climate changes are one of the driving factors of change in farming practices. New systems being developed by farmers (alone or with the help of farm advisors) and researchers require an evaluation phase in order to assess the relevance of new practices with regard to determined criteria. A wide range of tools are available, and...
Agronomists need methodologies to assess the sustainability of cropping systems. Few models such as MASC have been recently developed for evaluation. The effective use of those models is still a challenge, notably for low-input systems. Here a more specific model entitled MASC-OF was developed and applied to study stockless organic cropping systems...
Regarding environmental challenges, crop diversification provides some of the answers. Nevertheless, whatever the strengths, some weak points come up: low economical interest, knowledge of technical practices, lack of chain value and industry organization providing outlets and value. The authors present the results of a case study conducted in Fran...
Modern agriculture must meet new challenges such as production of healthy food, adaptation to climate change, protection of natural resources, and conservation of landscape. These challenges require changes in current agricultural systems and therefore, environmentally-friendly agricultural systems must be designed and their sustainability assessed...
Le choix de la rotation des cultures en grandes cultures biologiques spécialisées (sans élevage) est le premier levier activé pour maîtriser de nombreux problèmes, avant tout techniques (maintenir la fertilité des sols, maîtriser les bio-agresseurs, adventices en tête), mais aussi économiques (assurer le revenu de l’agriculteur). Diverses démarches...
Les systèmes de grandes cultures biologiques se sont développés en France à partir de la fin des années 90, dans une grande diversité de contextes pédoclimatiques et socioéconomiques. De ce fait, il apparaît utile de s'interroger sur les performances économique, agronomique, sociale et environnementale de ces systèmes alors même que leur dynamique...
Le développement de l'agriculture biologique est actuellement soutenu et suscite de fortes demandes d'appui de la part des agriculteurs auprès des organismes de conseils. La reconfiguration des systèmes de cultures (SDC) qu'entraîne la conversion est assimilable à un problème de décision multicritère particulièrement complexe à traiter. Un outil d'...
In order to achieve the objectives of sustainable agriculture, which include productivity, protection of the environment, and profitability, a group of farmers in western France have developed a set of specifications for the management of low-input cropping systems. It is now necessary to assess whether (i) these specifications are effective in ach...
The classical management of no-till wheat has several environmental and economic drawbacks such as the use and cost of herbicides,
and the degradation of soil physical quality. Recent investigations suggest that undersowing crops with a living mulch could
be a sustainable alternative. Therefore, we studied during three growing seasons the effect of...
No-till wheat management systems with a living mulch is a possible means to improve agricultural sustainability. Nonetheless living mulches may affect wheat production by competition for light and nutrients. Therefore, here we studied competition for light and nitrogen between wheat and different living mulches under no-till. We grew wheat using th...
We studied soil hydraulic conductivity (K) and porosity in five combinations of soil tillage and cover crop management systems. Treatments were winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grown on a conventionally tilled soil (CT), on a no-till soil (NT), and on an NT with three different cover crops: red fescue (Festuca rubra L.; Fr), bird's-foot-trefoil...
Des systèmes de culture innovants doivent être proposés pour répondre aux nouveaux objectifs de l'agriculture qui devront allier productivité, respect de l'environnement et rentabilité économique. Les systèmes de culture en semis direct sous couvert végétal (SCV) avec cultures associées permettraient d'atteindre ces objectifs. Si ces systèmes ont e...
In conservation agriculture, structural porosity evolves mainly as a result of climatic and biological activities. Moreover, no-till cropping systems with permanent living cover crops promote biological activity (microorganism, soil fauna and roots) since soil is never disturbed and roots are present in the soil all through the year. Therefore, one...
In France, cropping systems involving permanent cover crops with zero tillage do not exist yet. These cropping systems may reduce the risks of weed spread and nitrate leaching and increase carbon sequestration and biodiversity by maintaining actively growing vegetation during the whole year. But competition for light, water or nutrients between cov...
Questions
Questions (2)
The European Society for Agronomy (ESA) aims to promote the exchange of scientific and practical experience between experts in agronomy. Today, more than ever, we need to dialogue between peoples, between society and science and between all the disciplines that contribute agronomy because transformation of our agricultural systems is not an option, it is our future.
The aim of the 18th Congress of the ESA in Rennes, France in August 2024 is to vertebrate transformation in agricultural systems with new alliances, and synergies.
It is our pleasure to announce the opening of the Call for Abstracts.
Click here (https://esa2024.institut-agro.fr) for the submission of your abstract before the 18th of March!
Looking forward to meeting you in Rennes in August!
Dear all,
Olivier Godinot and I are preparing a Special Issue of Sustainability about "Improvement of the Sustainability of Agricultural Systems through the Ecological Intensification of Cropping Systems".
For more information: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/Agricultural_Ecological
