Objective:

The aim of the task 5.1 is to contribute to the building of an integrated tool to assess the sustainability of innovative cropping systems.

It focuses on two complementary aspects of individual decision to adopt or not the innovation: on the one hand, the impact of policy incentives on farmers’ decision making, and on the other hand, the impact of collective learning process.

First, for the new cropping systems generated by works carried out in WP1, WP2, WP3 and WP4, some data will be sought concerning the costs of implementation (direct production costs, machinery needs, and labour constraint).

Then, a bioeconomic model will be built in order to combine agronomic and environmental issues with the economic decision criteria of the farmer.

The model will be implemented and calibrated on several cereal-farm types of Midi-Pyrénées exhibiting different strategies of risk management. Thus, the model will permit a multicriteria assessment and the test of a set of incentives (subsidies, environmental regulations,…) to favor the adoption of more sustainable cropping systems inside the different farms, according to different attitudes towards risk.

The second part of this task consists in analyzing the role played by collective learning in the adoption of the new cropping systems.

It is assumed that, by changing the nature and the level of transaction costs of the learning process, the professional organizations and the associated informational structures in which the farmers evolve have a direct impact on their adoption decision.

The testing of this hypothesis is based on a theoretical model of collective learning process and on field surveys to assess the nature and intensity of the technical information and of the transaction costs.

Workplan and Methods:

- Building of the theoretical model integrating transaction costs in the learnig process of the farmer.

- Assessment of the transaction costs by a survey among farmers and cooperatives.

- Bibliography, survey among extension services in order to quantify the different costs linked to the implementation of the new cropping systems

- Building of the farm model incorporating i) the possibility of implementing new cropping systems, ii) the objectives and the constraints of the farmer (land, labor and machinery availability, risk constraints) (planned for 2011-2012)

- Setting of a farm typology in Midi-Pyrénées region.

- Survey among different farmers’ types to characterize different risk management strategies.

- Calibration of the farm model according to farm typology and different risk attitudes.

- Coupling of agronomic and economic model on the RECORD platform.

- Multi-criteria assessment (economical and environmental) of the implementation of the new cropping systems.

- Simulation of incentives inducing the adoption of the new systems.

Partners:

Various partners take part in this task: LEREPS, EI Purpan and CETIOM.