PL5_Pr - Using State Of The Art Technology To Manage The Environmental Impact Of Farming (2.9mb)

In Western Europe many citizens complain about the environmental impact of current farming practices. There are 3 major sources of complaint: water pollution, impact on biodiversity and contributions to greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result of this, the InVivo Group, the French national Union of agricultural cooperatives, has spent the last 4 years investing heavily in research to analyse the different agronomic practices used by farmers, and to identify the different levers available to reduce the environmental impact. The work consisted of extensive agronomic applied research combined with significant computer modeling of the different environmental impacts. The result is a collection of decision support tools, which can be easily used by local cooperative field technicians in their daily role of dispensing advice to farmers.
The subsequent use of these tools proven that we can rise to the challenge of reducing the environmental impact of farming practices without reducing farming productivity, and thereby provide sustainable solutions to the problems.
The presentation will highlight how farmers can now be informed about how their farming practices will impact on water quality, or on food source availability for bees, or on greenhouse gas emissions. The tools then propose the production programme with the lowest environmental impact, whilst preserving the agricultural productivity, on a field-by-field basis.
These tools are now being extended to other parts of Europe.

Keywords: technology to manage, farming, Western Europe
PP Presentation PDF - Adobe Version 8 or above.