Organic viticulture leads to lower trade-offs between agroecosystem goods but does not improve overall multifunctionality

Abstract

CONTEXTAssessing the multifunctionality of agroecosystems is crucial to design more sustainable farming systems. While it is known that organic farming benefits biodiversity and ecosystem services, how organic farming affects their multifunctionality, including agronomical, ecological as well as economic dimensions, remains poorly explored. OBJECTIVEIn this study, we investigated how individual indicators regrouped into agroecosystem goods of vineyards respond to farming systems and landscape composition. We also explored how ecosystem services resulting from agroecosystem goods respond to farming systems and landscape composition. In addition, we evaluated trade-offs and synergies between agroecosystem goods as well as between ecosystem services for each farming systems. METHODWe quantified 14 indicators corresponding to five agroecosystem goods (biodiversity conservation, soil organic matter decomposition, pest control, wine production, margin) in 20 pairs of organic and conventional vineyards. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONOur study reveals that organic farming did not improve agroecosystem multifunctionality compared to conventional farming but led to lower trade-offs between agroecosystem goods. We found that organic systems increase supporting and regulating services but had lower provisioning service compared to conventional systems. Indeed, organic vineyards had multiple beneficial effects including higher pest control, lower production costs but produced less wine. Our results indicate a strong trade-off between pest control and wine production in both systems. In addition, conventional systems supported a negative trade-off between biodiversity conservation and wine production which was not the case of organic systems. SIGNIFICANCEOur study provides key information to further design farming systems that combine ecological, economical and agronomical performances. Further investigations are now needed to identify which combined management options maximize multiple performance of agroecosystems independently of certifications and across scales.