La consommation d'engrais azotés en France. Une prospective pour 2010

Abstract

The French nitrogen fertilizer consumption. Prospects for 2010. The protection of the environment is nowadays a major goal for our society and its importance will probably get highly amplified in the near future. Farmers are pointed at because, through their use of fertilizers, they are responsible for a diffuse pollution of rivers andphreatic sheets. At the same time, these farmers are facing economic difficulties due to the steady decrease of agricultural prices in the European Community. Therefore, they try to reduce production costs by a better management of their intermediate consumptions (mostly fertilizers). Given this context, ivhat will be in fifteen years the consumption of fertilizers in France ? The aim of this paper is to answer this question by studying several scenarii based on the evolution of the economical, political and technological context. The future Common Agriculture Policy will certainly be the factor that will most affect this evolution. We focus only on nitrogen fertilizers, which are supposed to be the main responsibles for the pollution of phreatic sheets and which use can be rationalized. Hoivever, the methodology used to determine future consumption is easily applicable to other inputs (potassic and phosphoric fertilizers, phytosanitary, seeds, energy...). The goal of this research is tivofold : * On the one hand, we build a prospective model representing the agricultural sector and the fertilizer industries in order to estimate (by simulations) the fertilizer consumption in 2010. No existant methodology can readily be used. We propose a methodology drawing on Yves Barel's thinking (1971) and on systemic analysis, that implies the interaction of modelling, expertizing and simulations. We apply it to the agriculture sector and to the fertilizer industry but it is applicable to other sectors. * On the other hand, in addition to punctual results, this research aims at drawing a global prospective design of the French agriculture sector in 2010. The results of our prospective study show that, by the year 2010, the consumption of nitrogen fertilizers should clearly decrease. Such a decrease is mainly explained by a more rational use of fertilizers by farmers, due to the increased "environmentalists" pressure, ivhose lobby is represented at Bruxelles and in each French administrative region. Relevant technological innovations are spreading and should help farmers improve their fertilizing techniques.