Abstract
There is an urgent need for agriculture in general, and for viticulture in particular, to reduce their impacts on the environment. Doing so requires an approach that supports transitioning to more environmentally friendly practices. Involving farmers and agricultural advisors is key to lifting technical, economic, and social barriers to this transition. Participatory methods can help to consider specific contexts and concerns, but few suitable tools are available. We developed a methodological framework to address both environmental and economic dimensions at the field and farm scales in three participatory ecodesign workshops with winegrowers. We applied our framework to the ecodesign of pathways of technical operations in the Middle Loire Valley, France. The first two workshops focused on the field scale, and group interactions were facilitated using a serious game and a “live” assessment of the environmental performance of the ecodesigned system. The third workshop focused on implementation at farm level. The aggregated environmental impact of the ecodesigned farm decreased by 4%, while the economic performance of its four pathways of technical operations improved. We showed that combining environmental and economic assessment tools, suitable for use in participatory workshops, addresses most mechanisms for and barriers to changing practices at the farm scale. The typology of activities at the farm scale allows farm characteristics and the diversity of production systems to be represented in the ecodesign without over-complicating the process. The use of farm maps takes advantage of the collective expertise of the group and increases participant involvement. This process highlighted the need to continue to extend the scope and criteria of ecodesign to decrease environmental impacts even more. Here, we show for the first time the need to quantify the influence of a farm’s environmental practices on its economic performance to reduce the perception of risk and facilitate adoption of these practices.
Highlights
The framework described in this article (Fig. 2) has been improved from a previous study which focused on ecodesign of one pathway of technical operations (PTO) within a farm (Rouault et al 2020)
We presented a methodological framework to address changes in practices at field and farm scales with the participation of farmers and their agricultural advisors
This framework combines a typology approach with economic and environmental assessment tools in a participatory workshop. Applying this framework to the ecodesign of a vineyard showed that some mechanisms can be addressed only at the farm scale, since production factors limit the degree to which practices can be changed
Summary
Viticulture plays an important role in culture and landscapes in many producing countries (Stanco and Lerro 2020; Winkler et al 2017; Gullino and Larcher 2013); it can generate environmental impacts (Christ and Burritt2013) as biodiversity loss (Paiola et al 2020), erosion (Martínez-Casasnovas et al 2012), soils and water pollution (Mackie et al 2012; Herrero-Hernández et al 2020; Pompermaier et al 2021), or greenhouse gas emissions (Rugani et al 2013; Beauchet et al 2019). Approaches are needed to support a change to more environmentally friendly practices that involves farmers and agricultural advisors (Martin et al 2013) and uses participatory methods to consider their specific contexts (Lacombe et al 2018; Meynard et al 2012). To be effective, such approach should include technical, social, and economic dimensions. Many tools are available to assess economic or environmental performances at field, farm, or regional spatial scales Each of these scales has limits to its ability to inform changes in practices, and few tools are suitable for use in participatory approaches (Sala et al 2015; Renouf et al 2018). Others mobilize the technical–economic efficiency defined by the difference between the maximum output determined by the production frontier and the necessary production factors (minimum inputs) (Boussemart and Dervaux 1994; Alem et al 2018)
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