Portail HAL du CIHEAM Montpellier
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Implementing organic farming in vineyards
No full textInternational audienceConversion to organic farming can require deep technical changes that can be implemented through various pathways. This study aimed to better understand and characterize the various pathways that can be followed during conversion to organic farming. Our results highlight four types of trajectories of technical changes that depend on the number and type of technical changes implemented. These trajectories have been associated with four strategies on equipment, labor and vineyard area. Finally, we claim that the study developed herein can support the further understanding of the strategies to be applied for successful agroecological transitions
How can policy processes remove barriers to sustainable food systems in Europe? Contributing to a policy framework for agri-food transitions
No full textInternational audienceA new food policy coherent with the goal of achieving sustainable food systems implies changing visions and radically revising the understanding of the system on which agricultural and food-related policies act. This paper identifies and discusses policy processes that contribute to sustainable food systems in Europe. Based on a conceptual framework that links the policy cycle approach to transition theories, we (i) assess the evolution of policy cycles of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to highlight how the food and nutrition concepts have evolved and been reframed throughout the five phases of the CAP, (ii) map and classify available policy instruments to assess potential synergies and gaps in view of their reorganization and (iii) indicate and discuss strategic tools for sustainable food policies. This contribution goes beyond the current literature highlighting the obstacles which hinder the transition to a policy regime that embodies the nexus among food and nutrition security, natural capital preservation and climatic and social justice, and proposing new avenues for food policy studies
Bioregional planning and design: perspectives on a transitional century [volume I]
No full textInternational audienceThis book provides a review of the bioregionalist theory in the field of spatial planning and design as a suitable approach to cope with the growing concerns about the negative effects of metropolization processes and the need for a sustainable transition. The book starts out with a section on rethinking places for community life, and discusses the reframing of regional governance and development as well as social justice in spatial planning. It introduces the concept of the urban bioregion, a pivotal concept that underpins balanced polycentric spatial patterns and supports self-reliant and fair local development. The second part of the book focuses on planning, and particularly on the issues that arise from the ‘circular’ recovery of the relation between city and agro-ecosystems for integrated planning and resilience of settlements and discusses topics such as foodshed planning, biophilic urbanism and the integration of rural development and spatial planning. This volume sets out the reference framework for Volume II which deals with more specific and operational issues related to spatial policies and settlement design
Assessing the role of small farms in regional food systems in Europe: evidence from a comparative study
No full textInternational audienceThe importance of small farms is well established and recognized in developing countries, but far less is known about their role in Europe, where agriculture is largely industrialized. In this paper we use a comparative analysis of evidence from 15 European countries to assess the contribution of small farms to regional food production and availability, across geographies and products. We collected information about regional (NUTS-3) level production, trade and consumption of 91 products across 25 European regions using official statistics, expert interviews, and farm-level surveys. This information was used to develop product-specific systems maps which were coded and systematised. We then used a Random Forest algorithm to establish which system variables were more likely to explain variation along two dimensions: the contribution of small farms to regional production (i.e. proportion of regional production coming from small farms) and their contribution to regional food availability (i.e. proportion of their production that is consumed within the region). Our results suggest that the contribution of small farms to regional production is closely related to the relative abundance of small farms in the agricultural landscape, while their contribution to regional food availability is driven by structure of specific supply chains and the market linkages available to small farms, and in particular the degree of selfprovisioning and direct sales to consumers. These findings shed light on the relatively unknown word of European small farms, showing their importance in food production and availability, and providing new evidence to inform more effective policy for these often-neglected actors of the food system
How do small farms contribute to food and nutrition security? Linking European small farms, strategies and outcomes in territorial food systems
No full textInternational audienceDespite a longstanding literature on small farm-households, there is limited consideration of small farms’ role in food and nutrition security (FNS) at territorial level. The purpose of this study is to provide insights about how small farms contribute to FNS at different territorial scales, by focusing on farmers' strategies and consequential FNS outcomes. Analysis is based on two years (2017–2019) of field work done with farmers and food system actors in SALSA reference regions culminating in a workshop done with research partners. We find that small farms deliver food and nutrition security and other socio-economic and environmental outcomes for the farm-household, at local, regional and global levels. The regional level is shown to be critical for small farms, as it provides the scale at which their diversity is realised. Understanding this diversity is a goal for both research and for effective support mechanisms for small farm integration, and the multiple public and private functions small farms can deliver should be higher on the policy agenda
Outlook on the cereal harvest in the Mediterranean region at june 2020
No full textInternational audienceThe present bulletin is a general outlook on the cereal harvest in the Mediterranean region. It provides early qualitative forecasting of the 2020 cereal campaign, with a particular focus on soft wheat, durum wheat and barley. This is the final update which provides an assessment of thesituation at mid-June
Outlook on the cereal harvest in the Mediterranean region at 31 march 2020
No full textInternational audienceThe present bulletin is a general outlook on the cereal harvest in the Mediterranean region . It provides early qualitative forecasting of the 2020 harvest on three cereals crops: Soft wheat, durum wheat and barley. The first bulletin provides an assessment of the situation at the end of March will be followed by a second assessment of the situation at the end of April and published in June
Phenolic compounds and fatty acids content of some West Algerian olive oils
No full textInternational audienceOlive represents the most widespread fruit cultivated in Algeria. Olive oil is the primary source of added fat in the Mediterranean diet with health benefits of which have been verified for millennia. Interest in phenolic compounds in olive oil has increased due to its antioxidant activity, which plays a very important role in human health. The present study is carried out to study the phenolic compounds and fatty acids profile of some olive oils from western Algeria. The quality parameters (acidity, peroxide value, K232, K270), tocopherol analysis, fatty acid composition and phenolic profile were determined by High performance chromatography (HPLC). The results showed that chemlal oil (SBA) recorded the highest level of tocopherol-α with 228.12 mg/Kg. Regarding the fatty acid composition, oleic acid was the most dominant, oil Oleaster (Bensekrane) records the highest percentage (72.80%) of oleic acid. The quantitative data on the phenolic content of the seven samples revealed that chemlal oil (SBA) had the highest level of polyphenols (328.99 mg/Kg). However, Sigoise oil (Sebra1) was characterized by the highest levels of tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol (15.89 mg/kg and 22.42 mg/kg, respectively). The highest concentrations of oleuropein derivatives and ligstroside derivatives were observed in chemlal oil (SBA) and the recoreded values were 105.97 mg/Kg and 83.49 mg/Kg, respectively. Chemlal oil (SBA) was characterized by the highest amount of lignans (35.93 mg/Kg), luteolin (10.16 mg/Kg) and apigenin (5.44 mg/Kg). Oleocanthal was found in all the tested samples and it was higher in Chemlal oil (102.43 mg/kg)
Near real-time irrigation detection at plot scale using Sentinel-1 data
No full textInternational audienceIn the context of monitoring and assessment of water consumption in the agricultural sector, the objective of this study is to build an operational approach capable of detecting irrigation events at plot scale in a near real-time scenario using Sentinel-1 (S1) data. The proposed approach is a decision tree-based method relying on the change detection in the S1 backscattering coefficients at plot scale. First, the behavior of the S1 backscattering coefficients following irrigation events has been analyzed at plot scale over three study sites located in Montpellier (southeast France), Tarbes (southwest France), and Catalonia (northeast Spain). To eliminate the uncertainty between rainfall and irrigation, the S1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) signal and the soil moisture estimations at grid scale (10 km × 10 km) have been used. Then, a tree-like approach has been constructed to detect irrigation events at each S1 date considering additional filters to reduce ambiguities due to vegetation development linked to the growth cycle of different crops types as well as the soil surface roughness. To enhance the detection of irrigation events, a filter using the normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) obtained from Sentinel-2 optical images has been proposed. Over the three study sites, the proposed method was applied on all possible S1 acquisitions in ascending and descending modes. The results show that 84.8% of the irrigation events occurring over agricultural plots in Montpellier have been correctly detected using the proposed method. Over the Catalonian site, the use of the ascending and descending SAR acquisition modes shows that 90.2% of the non-irrigated plots encountered no detected irrigation events whereas 72.4% of the irrigated plots had one and more detected irrigation events. Results over Catalonia also show that the proposed method allows the discrimination between irrigated and non-irrigated plots with an overall accuracy of 85.9%. In Tarbes, the analysis shows that irrigation events could still be detected even in the presence of abundant rainfall events during the summer season where two and more irrigation events have been detected for 90% of the irrigated plots. The novelty of the proposed method resides in building an effective unsupervised tool for near real-time detection of irrigation events at plot scale independent of the studied geographical context