Does agroecology hold the answers?

The global impact of the climate emergency requires a global system approach to change in agriculture and an end to farming’s current focus on productivity. The selection of species and breeds, crop management and our stewardship of the wider landscape must all come under scrutiny. We need to establish how to accomplish this transition, look at the timescale involved, given the urgency of the climate emergency, and reflect on how support can be provided to farmers, the lynchpins of the process.

Rethinking agriculture

Agroecology offers one possible way to reconcile the competing challenges that face agriculture. Providing a coherent framework that encompasses a variety of mechanisms, it requires a major change of approach – the ideal in farming is no longer to raise the highest-performing varieties or breeds under stable conditions and using synthetic inputs, instead, different varieties and species are farmed together, creating an agile system that can adapt to changing conditions. In the words of Thierry Caquet, Scientific Director of Environment at INRAE, "farmers may have to invest in training and share knowledge and machinery to achieve a successful agroecological transition, but changes must also be made along the entire food chain, which will have to invest in new machinery and equipment for harvesting, pick-up and processing that can cope with more mixed and varied products, create new sectors, and devise new ways of selling, etc. At the other end of the chain, there is also a key role for consumers, whose purchasing choices exert a powerful force for change right across the system. It’s the whole of society that has to move forward, not just farmers". To achieve this level of transformation, researchers are also exploring the role of the inclusive process of co-creation in building a novel agroecological system.

This area of the Institute’s work is made possible by its long-term monitoring relationships with farmers, its dedicated experimental facilities, and its ‘living lab’ projects, which provide showcases for change.

Quick wins for transition

In some cases, the speed of transition has been impressive. For example, following the abolition of milk quotas in April 2015 and the subsequent drop in prices, dairy farmers in the Aveyron switched to organic farming in just 2 years, some of them taking their herds from zero pasture regimes to seven months at pasture each year. The transition to grass was very quickly achieved. "The farmers immediately replanted their fields, electing to rely on the diversification of plant species (up to 10 species in some cases, with staggered planting cycles) to tide them over recurrent periods of drought. Good management of these meadows and of their grazing ¹ enabled the farmers to reduce their costs, growing less maize for fodder and buying fewer fertilisers and concentrated feeds. These savings improved profitability from the very first year, even before the requisite period had been completed for their status as ‘organic farms’ to be approved, unlocking access to a sale price for organic milk that was one and a half times greater than conventionally-produced milk could command at the time", explains Guillaume Martin, an agronomist at INRAE, who tracked the progress of 19 dairy farmers over 3 years. His research also reveals that farmer satisfaction improved on conversion to organic production, especially that related to the economic viability of farmers’ businesses and their participation in social networks.

The shift to organic farming has also offered substantial advantages in terms of climate-change mitigation and adaptation. It has given the farmers greater flexibility in how they provide feed for their animals and has allowed them to take advantage of the capacity of grassland to store carbon, reduce erosion, increase biodiversity and improve the organic structure of the soil, which also improves its water retention. Last and not least, fresh grass supplies 90% of cattle’s water needs.

_{1. Species are selected to create perennial meadows and encourage regular grass growth, herds are returned to the field at the optimal moment to ‘clean away’ the old grass before spring growth begins, and grazing densities and durations are adjusted to encourage the re-growth of productive good-quality grass.}

Long-term engagement from an entire sector

A number of levers can be used simultaneously by growers to adapt to the water deficiency affecting vineyards in the South of France

Transition is necessarily a far longer affair for perennial crops such as grapes and tree fruit, where growers have to plan 15 or even 30 years into the future. French wine growers have opted for concerted action, and the whole sector is involved in the adaptation and mitigation measures needed for its survival in a changing climate. It was the first sector to have acted on its undertakings and was able in 2021 to present a strategy to government based on the outcomes of the LACCAVE project (2012-2021), an INRAE initiative involving 35 research teams and 12 partner organisations. It identifies a number of levers that can be used simultaneously by growers to adapt to the water deficiency now affecting vineyards in the South of France, where estates are suffering from smaller harvests and changes in the quality of their grapes and wines. Actions include the selection of varieties and rootstocks with greater tolerance of drought, moving existing vines to deeper soils with more shade or at higher altitudes, and adjusting crop management (from pruning and leaf removal to the controlled use of cover crops, grass, straw, mulches, soil conditioning and hedge planting). Possibilities for future action include use of drip irrigation systems alongside agroecological practices and changes to vinification methods to reduce alcohol content.

Pioneering work in the vineyards

The sector is already adapting: "In the Bordeaux region, wine growers are trialling non-local varieties in response to climate change, while making sure that these conform to the typical profile of Bordeaux wines. Since 2018, the French wine registers have authorised the introduction of such varieties. At INRAE we are studying 52 different varieties from the South and West of Europe to establish how they would respond to the production conditions we expect in the Bordeaux region", says Nathalie Ollat, who jointly led the LACCAVE project with Jean-Marc Touzard, an INRAE economist. For the latter, the critical issue is the extent of the temperature rise. If growers implement all the measures explored in the project, he believes they should be able to adapt to a temperature rise that is still below two degrees centigrade in 2100. "But the higher we go above that threshold, the less likelihood there will be that the tradition of estate-based winegrowing that relies on the particular characteristics of a local area can continue. It is not just about temperature – unpredictable extreme weather patterns are going to make the sustainable production of high-quality wines in designated areas of origin increasingly hard to achieve.  Instead, it is probable that more variable grape harvests will be sold to merchant-vintners who will be able to blend the wines and adjust them with chemicals. Year-round wine production could even be achieved by using musts from different regions. But if we love our wines and regional varieties, we need to do everything in our power to implement the COP21 objectives."