Vers l’autonomie azotée en agriculture biologique : une étude de cas théorique sur un territoire français

The development of organic farming (OF) faces the challenge of nitrogen (N) availability. Recent studies explore this issue focusing on global scales, leaving a gap in terms of analysis at the local scale. This work develops a methodology at the local scale to model the OF evolution and assess its N self-sufficiency according to development scenarios. Five scenarios were constructed and modeled. The results show the difficulty of achieving this self-sufficiency at the territorial level while offering several ways to improve it. An optimization of the system results in a slight increase in the N self-sufficiency but this remains insufficient and structural changes are therefore necessary. The use of agricultural land partially dedicated to the production of organic fertilizers seems to be an essential lever for moving towards self-sufficiency but leads in return to a reduction in the land productivity of the territory.