A framework for integrated assessment of cereal–legume intercropping: Linking environmental impacts to farm‐level economic performance

Abstract Intensive European cropping systems face increasing environmental pressures, yet agronomic and environmental performance of different cropping systems is often evaluated separately, limiting the understanding of the true feasibility of ecologically intensive systems. To bridge this gap, we develop a framework that integrates agronomic and environmental data, using data from field experiments to demonstrate its application using French cereal–legume trials to assess the environmentally adjusted gross margins and the implications for farmer decision‐making. This proof‐of‐concept showed the sole cropping system remained more economically viable than the intercropped system even when accounting for externalities. However, the analysis also demonstrated that data limitations, methodological assumptions, and uncertainties in environmental valuation constrain the interpretability of results, underscoring the need for more comprehensive and coordinated experimental designs in future applications of the environmentally adjusted gross margin framework.