Vers des agricultures à hautes performances: Analyse des voies de progrès en agriculture conventionnelle par orientation productive (Volume 4)

After a call-for-project, the general Commissariat for Strategy and Outlook (Commissariat général à la stratégie et à la propsective (CGSP)) asked INRAE to analyze the opportunities for development of agricultural practices and systems used in France today, in order to conciliate productive, economic, environmental and social performances and the conditions for  deploying such high-performance systems.

The approach used first consisted in qualifying what "multi-performing agricultures" means. To do this, the impacts of more than  200 elementary agricultural practices were qualified in the light of 35 indicators of five performance classes, that is (i) production, (ii) economy, (iii) use of natural resources, (iv) protection of the environment and (v) social performances (volume 3). Then, the study analyzed the impacts of combinations of practices on five performance classes by building a tool to help design agricultural production systems (volume 2).

In parallel, the study involved INRAE's Industry & Research groups who worked complementarily and independantly:

=> by analyzing a total of 8 sectors or sector groups: large annual crops (cereals, oleo-protein plants and beets); fruits, vegetables and potatoes; vines and products of the vine; pigs; poultry; meat cattle and sheep; dairy cattle and sheep; and horses
=> and this according to a notation scale: description of the social-economic context for each sector, identification of strengths and weaknesses, identification of multi-performance bottlenecks of the sectors and obstacles to overcome on the short, average or long term. These obstacles and levers concern not only farms but the whole sector, public policy, consultants, etc.

This analysis per sector (volume 4) is complementary to that centered on the farm, beginning with those that the farm sets up or could set up. The main research pathway to be developed for each sector is also described.

This study includes a volume dedicated to organic farming (volume 1).