Pierre Dupraz

Agri-environment-climate measures and organic farming support have been the main contractual instruments promoting environment-friendly agricultural practices in the European Union since the 90s. They are insufficient in reaching significant environmental improvements, partly because underfunded. Using French panel data from the farm accountancy data network, we evaluate the impact of a budget transfer from income support to environmental incentives on contract uptake. We apply a generalised Tobit model to estimate the adoption probability and the acceptable farm-level payment triggering this adoption and simulate a transfer from direct payments to organic farming support and agri-environment-climate measures budget. Results suggest this mechanism increases adoption. Decreasing direct payments affects participation probabilities and acceptable farm-level payments, differently depending on the type of environmental contract, the type of direct payment and the farm technical orientation. We evaluate several transfer scenarios and provide ex-ante elements on how it could help reaching the Green Deal organic target.

Enteric fermentation from dairy cows is a major source of methane. Significantly and rapidly reducing those emissions would be a powerful lever to mitigate climate change. For a given productivity level, introducing fodder with high sources of n-3 content, such as grass or linseed, in the feed ration of dairy cows both improves the milk nutritional profile and reduces enteric methane emissions per liter. Changing cows' diet may represent additional costs for dairy farmers and calls for the implementation of payments for environmental services to support the transition. This paper analyzes 2 design elements influencing the effectiveness of a payment conditioned toward the reduction of enteric methane emissions: (1) the choice of emission indicator capturing the effect of farmers' practices, and (2) the payment amount relative to the additional milk production costs incurred. Using representative farm-level economic data from the French farm accountancy data network, we compare enteric methane emissions per liter of milk calculated with an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Tier 2 method, to baseline emissions from a Tier 3 method accounting for diet effects. We also quantify the additional milk production costs of integrating more grass in the fodder systems by estimating variable cost functions for different dairy systems in France. Our results show the relevance of using an emission indicator sensitive to diet effects, and that the significance and direction of the additional costs for producing milk with a diet containing more grass differ according to the production basin and the current share of grasslands in the fodder crop rotation. We emphasize the importance of developing payments for environmental services with well-defined environmental indicators accounting for the technical problems addressed, and the need to better characterize heterogeneous funding requirements for supporting a large-scale adoption of more environment-friendly practices by farmers.

A new 5-year Common Agricultural Policy has been in place since January 2023. Like its predecessors, this new policy will fail to deliver significant climatic and environmental benefits. We show how the Green Architecture of the policy relying on the three instruments of conditionality, eco-schemes, and agri-environment and climate measures could have been used more consistently and effectively. Our proposals are based on core principles of public economics and fiscal federalism as well as on research results in agronomy and ecology. Conditionality criteria are the minimal requirements that every agricultural producer must meet. Farmers should be rewarded for efforts that go beyond these basic requirements through eco-schemes for global public goods complemented by agri-environment and climate measures centred on local public goods. Eco-schemes should cover the whole agricultural area by targeting permanent grasslands, crop diversification, and green cover and non-productive agro-ecological infrastructures. We discuss trade-offs that our proposals could generate.

La future PAC affiche une plus grande ambition climatique et environnementale recherchée via notamment le nouvel instrument de l’éco-régime du premier pilier. Cet article analyse les conditions d’accès des agriculteurs à l’éco-régime français par la voie dite de la certification environnementale. Les résultats mettent en lumière le faible niveau d’ambition climatique et environnementale de la voie puisque la quasi-totalité des exploitations agricoles auraient accès au premier niveau, et plus d’un tiers au niveau supérieur, sans aucune modification de leurs pratiques actuelles. Le référentiel de la certification HVE est en cours de révision. L’analyse est basée sur la version de ce référentiel en vigueur au 1er octobre 2022.

Cet article propose une analyse de plusieurs aspects des propositions législatives pour la PAC de l’après 2020 présentées par la Commission européenne le 1er juin 2018. La première section, de nature transversale, aborde les questions des objectifs de la future PAC et de leur déclinaison en instruments mis en œuvre dans le cadre de plans stratégiques nationaux. Les quatre sections suivantes mettent l’accent sur quatre thématiques au cœur des débats sur la future PAC, soit : i) l’environnement et le changement climatique ; ii) les risques et leur gestion ; iii) la surnutrition ; et iv) l’innovation. Pour chacun de ces thèmes, nous présentons l’état de l’art de la recherche et en déduisons des recommandations de politique publique. La conclusion analyse dans quelle mesure les propositions du 1er juin 2018 sont cohérentes avec cet état de l’art et ces recommandations.

La sélection de bactéries résistantes aux antibiotiques transmissibles à l’homme, induite par l’usage des antibiotiques en productions animales, incite les pouvoirs publics à réduire leur utilisation, dans le cadre du Plan Ecoantibio 2012-2017 et de la Loi d’avenir pour l’agriculture. Cet article questionne la pertinence des mesures en cours d’implémentation par les administrations françaises au regard d’un cadre d’analyse, regroupant dans un modèle conceptuel l’ensemble des facteurs sanitaires, économiques et institutionnels déterminant la demande d’antibiotiques. La compréhension des clés d’usage des antibiotiques, produit banal et substituable, ou au contraire ressource particulière, soumise à prescription, permet également d’envisager d’autres politiques de réduction.