Assessing ecologically sustainable agricultural land-use in the Central Pyrénées at the field and landscape level

Abstract Sustainable land use in agricultural systems involves the implementation of agricultural practices at the landscape level instead of at a field level. To test the above hypothesis a case study was conducted in two valleys of the Central Pyrenees (France), with two villages using two contrasting farming patterns: one village used a strong group organisation of agricultural practices at the valley level, while the other used a collection of practices at the field level. Two indicators of landscape organisation were used on both villages. The first indicator was the statistical contribution of the environment to the choice of agricultural practices by farmers, and was calculated at the field level on the overall valley territory. The second indicator was based on relationships between agro-ecological units and farms, measured at the valley level. The comparison between the group practices organised at the valley level and the individual practices organised at the field level showed that the latter system, with fragile and unstable agro-ecological units, had spatially specialised farms, and environmentally independent agricultural practices. Conversely the group practices used at the valley level were linked to stable agro-ecological units, fragmented farms, and environmentally dependent agricultural practices. The ecological sustainability of larger territories seemed to be in opposition with the standard criteria judging economical sustainability of farms. This analysis showed that the dependence of agricultural practices on the environmental features (i.e. the valley level versus the individual farm) secured the sustainability of the resources and landscape, even if it was in contradiction with a farm’s economical criteria. The assessment of agro-environmental practices at a landscape level, intended as a natural level of organisation (such as valleys or watersheds) and larger than the plot level, is necessary, in order to enhance the effectiveness of future agricultural policies.