While plains favorable to agriculture are still dominated by specialized and intensive agriculture, self-sufficient mixed crop-dairy farming systems increasingly attract policy makers' and scientists' attention. Owing to their limited use of purchased inputs, they can contribute to reducing the environmental impact of agriculture. Furthermore, self-sufficient farming tends to be linked with a search for autonomy in decision-making, i.e., farmers developing their own technical reference framework. Such farming systems can thus also contribute to alternative development pathways of rural territories. In this paper, we analyze how ten intensive mixed crop–dairy farms have progressively evolved toward more self-sufficient and autonomous systems. Through formalizing farmers' transition in action, we identified 34 tools that the farmers implemented making them reflect on their farming system, shift socio-professional networks, reorganize work routines, and steer the evolution of their production practices. For example, they created temporary pastures in crop rotation, introduced rotational pastures, observed their herds to adjust their feed and keep the animals in good health, and they limited expenditures to manage their cash flow. Which tools were used and when they were used depends on what is meaningful to them at various stages of the transition. Our analysis of transitions in action has three original features: it is centered on the transition as perceived by the actors who experience and manage it; it proposes a long-term conceptualization of the dynamics of farming systems, based on the farmer's initiative and creativity; and it highlights tools implemented by farmers during the transition to self-sufficiency and autonomy.

Rural, natural and peri-urban areas seem nowadays to become the object of conflicts and tensions because of their multi-functional nature. If these conflicts issue from opposing views about the use of land, they are also determined by the spatial parameters that characterize the pieces of land affected by the projects of land-use transformation, and by the antagonistic relationship between two or several units of action (farmers and local planners, for example). Therefore, there is a need for a new management of rural (and peri-urban) areas, and this is the role of territorial governance, which is the engine of local development, and the tool for better local compromises, involving periods of opposition and streams of negotiation. Territorial governance has to take into account not only negotiations but conflict relations as well and to include both interaction schemes into its framework. Our study assesses the role played by conflicts in land use within a peri-urban context, based on studies on the Greater Paris region, and a case study on the use of agricultural soils on the urban fringe.

Integrated crop–livestock systems in the tropical region are diverse and not well characterized. To better understand the conditions and potential of these systems, we characterized the spatial and social arrangement of integrated systems within a landscape context. Integrated systems are defined by biomass and nutrient flows, linking crop, livestock and human components of agriculture. The landscape is defined within a spatial framework of these flows. To understand the diversity of integrated systems in the tropics, we characterized three case study areas: Southern Mali, Brazilian Cerrados and Amazon frontier. Methodology was based on historical and descriptive approaches of these cases, mobilizing interdisciplinary knowledge of a large research team. This provided a retrospective view to discuss four key points about the future of integrated systems in the tropics: (i) importance of landscape structure for conception and adaptation of the integrated systems; (ii) key role of local institutions in managing such integrated systems; (iii) trade-offs between external and internal resources; and (iv) role of nitrogen to improve system efficiency. This paper concludes with the relevance of social sciences in the further development of integrated systems.

In Brazil, as well as globally, land use has been increasingly addressed for environmental impacts and economic improvements. Integrated crop–livestock systems (ICLSs) are a potential strategy to optimize use of land, increase total production and reduce economic risk through diversification. We compared production and economic outcomes of a soybean-only system with ICLS differing in sward management. The study area was managed since 2001 using no-till in southern Brazil. Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] was rotated with a mixture of black oat (Avena strigosa Schreb) and ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam) either for: (i) grazing (ICLS) or (ii) cover crops as cropping system only (CS) with no livestock grazing. Four sward height management methods (10, 20, 30 or 40 cm) were evaluated under put-and-take stocking. Across years, soybean yield (2516±103 kg ha−1) was not affected by treatment, but was affected by year (P<0.001), due to rainfall during crop development. Cattle average daily gain, gain per hectare (GPH) and gross margin were affected by treatments (P<0.001). Average daily gain was lower when pasture was managed at 10 cm than between 20 and 40 cm. With increasing sward height, a gradual reduction in cattle GPH was observed (P<0.05). Overall gross margin was lower in CS than in ICLS. Economic return with ICLS was greatest when sward height management was between 10 and 20 cm. Our study indicates that ICLS could be considered an alternative management strategy that improves economic performance and promotes balanced production in the long term.

Research to understand and manage ecosystems to supply services has recently spurred a functional view of their biodiversity. In particular, approaches based on functional traits rather than species diversity are increasingly used to reflect interactions between organisms and their environment. These approaches bring a functional perspective to the study of community structure responses to disturbances and resources, and of their effects on ecosystem functioning and services. From an academic perspective, we propose a conceptual framework based on species functional traits to better infer how grassland management practices (fertilization, defoliation regime) along with abiotic factors influence plant, animal and microbial community composition and a range of services in grassland ecosystems. The core of the framework relies on combinations of plant functional traits and associated microbial features that specifically respond to environmental and management factors and influence ecosystem services. To overcome stakeholders’ difficulty in applying the concept of functional traits, we propose an operational approach implying the mapping of plant communities distributed into five plant functional types (PFTs). The approach was used for fields in grassland-based livestock farms from two French grassland networks. We evaluated its ability to predict a range of services including forage provision and non-market services according to environmental and management drivers. PFT-based plant community composition predicted forage services reasonably well but responded weakly to environmental gradients. To cope with the observed limitations of current predictive approaches, we suggest including soil microbial functional types and adaptive management rather than using a prescriptive scheme.

An agricultural facility aimed at sustainable production of crops in arid environments was built and tested in Hatzeva, Israel. The facility relies on solar-powered desalination with nanofiltration membranes to treat the local brackish water (EC=2.32 dS m−1) and produce high-quality irrigation water (EC=0.71 dS m−1). Red beet, a salt-tolerant crop, was grown with the concentrate stream (EC=4.73 dS m−1), eliminating the need for concentrate disposal and with potential net economic benefits. Agricultural experiments with variable irrigation water quality, application rate, and four staple crops (potato, maize, millet and sorghum) were conducted over two growing seasons between September 2010 and June 2011. The desalination plant operated at low pressure (4.3 bar) and energy consumption (1.37 kWh m−3) and with little maintenance over the entire study period. The results of the agricultural experiments consistently showed that irrigation with desalinated water promoted more efficient use of resources such as water and inorganic fertilizers. A reduction of 25% in the irrigation rate and use of fertilizers compared with best-practice guidelines was achieved with desalinated water, with no detectable detrimental effect on the marketable yield. On the contrary, a statistically significant yield increase was observed for sorghum (+10%). An increase in water productivity with desalinated water was observed for all four staple crops.

Defining the balance between socio-economical and bio-physical aspects in order to promote sustainable development in agriculture is a fundamental challenge for researchers. The aim of this study is to assist in constructing a science of sustainability in agriculture and to assess sustainability in various types of agroecosystem managements characterized by different agricultural and rural developments. This study evaluates sustainability on Terceira Island (Portugal) and in the Province of Viterbo (Italy) by using selected agroecosystem sustainability indicators capable of achieving an energetic and monetary input/output analysis. Overall, results showed two rural and agricultural realities that outline two different responses to world market demand, which are partly due to specific rural histories. In terms of energy supply, Terceira and Viterbo dairy farms use the same amount of input but in monetary terms the level of input is more than double in Viterbo (€1651 ha−1 versus €616 ha−1) which is due to the lower cost of direct energy (e.g., fuel) on the island. The use of direct energy input (fuel, electricity and lubricants) on the farms in Viterbo decreases in mixed farm systems and is at its minimum on dairy farms. On the other hand, the use of indirect energy input (fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, seeds and feedstuffs) is greater on Terceira farms compared with those in Viterbo (0.76 versus 0.60, respectively). Generally speaking, the crops grown on Terceira are not diversified and this has caused environmental issues on the island due to the milk production that is mainly exported. In Europe, more intellectual and financial resources for measuring and monitoring sustainability conditions in agriculture are necessary, in order to appropriately inform decision makers at both institutional and individual level.

Different theories have been posited that try to explain the decision-making process of smallholders especially regarding the adoption of new technologies or new agricultural techniques. The objective of this paper is to review and re-assess the dominant household production theories to explain the decision making of smallholders practicing conservation agriculture (CA) in the southern, eastern, and central provinces of Zambia. It also discusses the potential role of CA toward economic development. It finds that the CA smallholders studied did not aim to maximize profits but tried to secure household consumption from their own production before any other considerations in risky and uncertain environments. Their response to economic incentives was contingent on minimizing risks associated with securing a minimum level of livelihood and investing into local forms of insurance. This paper concludes that the ability for CA to contribute to rural livelihoods and economic development would depend on how adequately the factors that hinder smallholder agricultural development in general are addressed.