Towards sustainable farming systems: Effectiveness and deficiency of the French procedure of sustainable agriculture

Abstract There is a widespread consensus about the importance of sustainable agriculture. In France, the Farming Orientation Law of July 1999 has set down a precise procedure for the implementation of sustainable agriculture: the contrat territorial d’exploitation – or territorial farm contract (TFC). This paper aims to analyse the TFC effectiveness. An analysis has been made of the TFCs signed in the Midi-Pyrenees Region in south-western France, using statistical analysis and qualitative surveys of a sample of farms. The results show that the most valuable effects have been mainly economic. Effects regarding social and environmental aspects were very limited. But from the point of view of an integrated approach, indirect effects of TFCs can be observed on social and environmental aspects. These results are explained, on the one hand, by farmers’ motivations guided by economic objectives, and on the other hand, by the dominance of professional farming organisations in the implementation of TFC’s procedure. Given these results, two ways of improving the elaboration procedure for TFCs are proposed. Firstly, technical improvements can be made to the diagnostic assessment of farms, and to the choice of actions addressed by the contract. Secondly, organisational improvements can be applied to TFCs elaboration and implementation process, in order to adopt a participatory approach which would involve all rural stakeholders.

[1]  James W. Jones,et al.  Systems approaches for the design of sustainable agro-ecosystems , 2001 .

[2]  James Hansen,et al.  Is agricultural sustainability a useful concept , 1996 .

[3]  G. Vedel,et al.  Bilan de l'expérience des plans de développement durable du point de vue de la relation agriculture-environnement . , 1998 .

[4]  James Hansen,et al.  A systems framework for characterizing farm sustainability , 1996 .

[5]  Ray Ison,et al.  Systems methodologies for sustainable natural resources research and development. , 1997 .

[6]  N. Röling,et al.  Ecological Knowledge System , 1996 .

[7]  É. Landais.  Agriculture durable : les fondements d'un nouveau contrat social. , 1998 .

[8]  I. Doussan,et al.  L'environnement, objet de contrat entre l'agriculture et la société? , 2000 .

[9]  Julian Park,et al.  Integrative research and sustainable agriculture , 1996 .

[10]  L. Dobremez,et al.  Multifonctionnalité et diagnostics d'exploitation dans le cadre des CTE: approche méthodologique et enseignements tirés des démarches adoptées dans quelques départements , 2001 .

[11]  Neill Schaller,et al.  The concept of agricultural sustainability , 1993 .

[12]  Leo Stroosnijder,et al.  The future of the land. Mobilising and integrating knowledge for land use options. , 1994 .

[13]  G. Conway,et al.  SUSTAINABILITY IN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT: TRADE-OFFS WITH PRODUCTIVITY, STABILITY AND EQUITABILITY , 1994 .

[14]  Luc Hens,et al.  The Johannesburg Conference , 2003 .

[15]  Ruerd Ruben,et al.  Analytical framework for disentangling the concept of sustainable land use , 1996 .

[16]  F. Léger.  Mise en oeuvre territoriale de la multifonctionnalité de l'agriculture dans un échantillon de projets collectifs CTE , 2001 .

[17]  Frederick L. Kirschenmann,et al.  Facilitating Sustainable Agriculture. , 2001 .

[18]  Murari Suvedi,et al.  Farmers' definitions, goals, and bottlenecks of sustainable agriculture in the North-Central Region , 2000 .

[19]  J. Cain,et al.  Belief Networks: A Framework for the Participatory Development of Natural Resource Management Strategies , 1999 .

[20]  John S. Marsh.  The policy approach to sustainable farming systems in the EU , 1997 .