Keywords :

Identifying and gaining insight into farmers’ strategies and practices to assess the impacts of vine growers’ adoption of alternative types of agriculture on a catchment scale (France)

Many INRA research programmes and expert studies are underway with the aim of finding ways to sustainably and markedly reduce pesticide use and impacts in agriculture. Viticulture is not an exception since, in France, this sector consumes 20% of all pesticides applied on only 3.7% of the utilized agricultural area (UAA). In areas where vine monoculture prevails, the surface water quality is often poor, usually as a result of contamination by herbicides, along with fungicides and pesticides. The health of spraying operators, field workers and the local community is also a concern. The situation could be improved in several complementary ways: (i) implementing integrated protection principles in order to reduce plant pest and disease infestations and only using pesticides when necessary, (ii) improving product application conditions, (iii) using soil maintenance methods that preserve and improve these soils, and (iv) developing organic farming principles. Several Agropolis laboratories are jointly striving to find the best combinations of these different strategies to be implemented on farms and with respect to spatial plot layouts in catchment basins. This multidisciplinary research is essential to overcome obstacles to applying the approaches and to enhance synergy between initiatives geared towards developing and assessing solutions. The methods are aimed at: (i) identifying alternative systems for each potential improvement, and (ii) combining farmer decision-making models with cropping models and hydropedological models in order to simulate the impacts of different scenarios on soil and water quality at catchment outlets. Similar studies have been or are being carried out in other areas and agricultural situations (banana plantations in Guadeloupe, coffee plantations in Costa Rica). Potential extensions throughout the Mediterranean Basin are being investigated.