Contribution de l'agronomie à l'évaluation des opérations locales agri-environnementales

Agri-environmental policies have been designed by national and EU authorities to deal with environmental problems involving farming activities. In evaluating Local Agri-Environmental Operations, French agronomists have needed to take into account the spatial distribution of farming activities across the territory concerned by the Operation. Agronomic analyses focus on the following aspects of the Operation : coherence of the measures regarding the delimitation of the area concerned and the content of the list of obligations applying to the cropping systems (annual crops and grasslands); consequences of contracting and of farm adaptability to technical change. We illustrate the potential of these agronomic analyses with an evaluation of agri-environmental measures applied in the wetlands of western France for biotope protection through maintenance of grasslands and advocacy of extensive management practices.