Abstract
The development of organic agriculture in France was steady since 2010 but became stronger since 2014. Like other crops, the cultivated areas of organic soybean and sunflower doubled from 2014 to 2018. With a view to better characterize cultural practices in organic production, Terres Inovia and ITAB (in collaboration with Agence Bio) conducted in 2016 and 2017 a national farmers’ survey. These surveys reveal that sunflower was mainly cultivated over the same types of soil than in conventional production but were integrated in more diversified rotations. The main differences between organic and conventional systems concern sowing date and weed control. Organic sunflower was sown very lately compared to conventional one, which impacted the yield severely. Weed were controlled through ploughing, mechanical weeding and crop rotation and weed control was judged as satisfying by a major part of producers. Concerning soybean, a great difference is the use of irrigation which is almost systematic in conventional but concerned only 50% of cultivated area in organic production. Contrary to sunflower, soybean is integrated in short crop rotation, particularly when it was irrigated. This demonstrated the high profitability of soybean in organic systems. Like for sunflower, weed control done through ploughing, mechanical weeding, and crop rotation and weed control was also judged satisfying; nevertheless, criteria on harvest impurities are more severe and to respect them, organic farmers also use hand weeding in complement. These surveys will be reconducted over the years to be able to follow the changes of cultural practices over the years.
Highlights
The development of organic agriculture in France was steady since 2010 but became stronger since 2014
The profitability of organic soybean was reported in other countries like in the USA (McBride and Greene, 2009; Hartman et al, 2016): in 2016, Hartman reported that organic soybean price for food was about 24 USD for feed, whereas conventional soybean price was only of 9 USD for feed. This great difference of price induced a great difference of profitability of soybean between organic and conventional systems, even if operating costs per acre were slightly higher for organic production (103 USD/acre vs 92 USD/acre; McBride and Greene, 2009)
This difference of yield between organic and conventional production was observed in several countries where organic soybean is cultivated, like in China (Knudsen et al, 2010; Zhang et al, 2015) or in the USA (McBride and Greene, 2009; Hartman et al, 2016), where organic yields were lower from 10% to 20% compared to conventional yields. Each of these surveys is a photography of the practices set up by producers for a given year. It shows that organic cultivation mainly differs from conventional cultivation on three points: crop rotation, sowing date and weed control
Summary
The development of organic agriculture in France was steady since 2010 but became stronger since 2014. We observed from 2014 to 2018 a strong increase of cultivated areas for oilseed and protein crops, for sunflower, soybean, pulses (chick-pea and lens) and legumecereal intercrop (see Fig. 1; data from Agence Bio, 2019). Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté are respectively the 3rd and the 4th most important regions for soybean and sunflower whereas it is respectively Centre-Val de Loire and Pays de la Loire for protein crops (Pays de la Loire is even the 1st region for legume-cereal intercrops). Producers are questioned about their motivations to cultivate these crops, the key factors for success (or failure), the average yields and the technical itineraries These surveys are conducted on each crop separately, and repeated over the years, to follow the changes. In addition to the follow-up of the evoluton of agricultural practices over the years, these surveys aim (i) to point out the main difficulties encoutered by producers (and so define research and development programs to solve them), (ii) to better explain the relationship between agricultural practices and crop performances (yield and grain quality essentially) and (iii) provide a base to imagine which could be the innovating technical itinearries of tomorrow
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