Paper details

Title:

Designing and Assessing Bioeconomy Oriented Cropping Systems

Author(s):

Journel, C., Zub-preudhomme, H.W., Detot, B., Jullier, N., Preudhomme, M., Loyce, C.

Document(s):

Abstract:

France, and particularly Northern France, want to place bioeconomy at the heart of their economy. Agricultural sector is a strong link of bioeconomy, as bioeconomy is the photosynthesis economy, based on sustainable production, increased mobilization, and optimized use of biomass, in particular of agricultural biomass. Biomass production has to provide various raw materials, to input a diversity of bioeconomy sectors: food, feed, biogas production, bio-sourced materials, oil and sugar chemical industry. To allow this food/non-food complementarity and to develop biomass supply chains on rural areas, innovation in production systems is required to produce sustainable and efficient bioresources to supply locally bioeconomy sectors within a territory, while preserving agro-ecosystem performances and meeting stakeholder’s expectations (farm, industrial and territory players). Meeting the multiple objectives of bioeconomy seems to be a daunting challenge for agricultural systems, that need to be redesigned by developing in synergy agro ecological approaches and cropping system diversification. One of the purposes of the “Demonstrating Sites Network” project is to demonstrate whether it is feasible, in the agricultural sector, to produce various sustainable and efficient bioresources in the current cropping systems of Northern France, in order to supply various bioeconomy sectors (food, feed, biogas production, bio-sourced materials, oil and sugar chemical industry). To achieve its objectives, our approach aims at designing oriented bioeconomy cropping systems with a large range of bio resources production (green or dry lignocellulose, fiber, oilseeds) and by using innovative techniques. Prototype of new cropping systems were co-designed with Scientifics and Experts by focusing on the most currently cultivated cropping systems in Northern France (potato-, sugar beet- cereal/oilseed-and forage- oriented systems), from which bioeconomy oriented systems have been designed. Each proposed system has to satisfying simultaneous goals: maximizing and diversifying biomass production, meeting farmers and industrial sectors issues, providing additional ecosystem services (organic matter, weed control, soil structure, soil fertility), given the major constraints and agro-ecological targets. Several bioeconomy scenarios with increasing gradient of biomass production were designed for each current cropping system according to these guidelines. Many levers were used to devise prototypes: exportation of some straws, diversification of crops, intercropping including legume crops, introduction of dedicated non-food crops (hemp, camelina), cultivation of 3 biomass crops in 2 years, harvesting of catch crop. Three types of cropping systems, with increasing biomass production gradient, were designed: 1) First scenario is “the control scenario”, corresponding to the current systems. 2) Second scenario is the “light bioeconomy scenario”: modifying the current system to increase the biomass production, while keeping food crops (species and number). 3) Third scenario is the “high bioeconomy scenario”: innovative system, with major breakthrough: substitute food crops by non-food, elongation of crop succession, etc. All the cropping systems are tested in long-term field experiments (2015-2020): 18 cropping systems are tested, divided on five experimental platforms located in different regions of Northern France. Regular measurements are realized in order to evaluate agro-ecosystem performances by calculating agronomic (yield and quality production, soil structure, pests and diseases control) environmental (organic content, N, P and K balance, nitrate leaching, water consumption, potential risks of pesticide transfers, GHG emissions, energy consumption, arthropod biodiversity) and socio-economic (gross margin, semi-net margin, peak work load, work time) performance indicators. The performances of the bioeconomy systems are then compared to the control scenario, and used to assist continuous improvement of the bioeconomy systems to ensure the technical feasibility and to meet the multiple objectives of the bioeconomy. The expected output of these experiments is to provide references about performances, impacts and ecosystem services of bioeconomy oriented cropping systems, feedbacks, tools and methods to optimize biomass production and mobilization.

Keywords:

agriculture, environmental impact, crop

Topic:

Biomass Resources

Subtopic:

Integrated biomass production for energy purposes

Event:

26th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition

Session:

1BO.9.1

Pages:

103 - 106

ISBN:

978-88-89407-18-9

Paper DOI:

10.5071/26thEUBCE2018-1BO.9.1

Price:

FREE