To face the current issues (climate change, prices volatility, regulation changes, and environmental impact decrease), the sustainability of the French durum wheat agrofood chain lies on its capacities of organization, innovation and adaptation. The Dur-Dur project suggests developing a systematic approach to investigate the questions related to the management of the nitrogen, energy and contaminants, to guarantee a global quality of products throughout the production and the transformation chain. Planned over 4 years, this multifactorial approach aims at integrate the 3 dimensions of the durability (environmental, economic, and social), at 4 levels of investigation: (task 1) agronomy, for the production of grains of high quality based on innovative technical ways to reduce the dependence to chemical inputs (nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides) via experiments in silico and in situ; (task 2) technology, with the adaptation of the transformation processes to the protein content and quality of wheat; (task 3) process engineering, for the energetic re-design of equipments ; (task 4) economy, to characterize the strategies of innovation and analyze the behavior of the actors of the agrofood chain and propose actions of coordination. A task of integration by multi-criteria analyses and ACV has the aim of identifying the efficient levers to improve and guarantee the sustainability of the durum wheat agrofood chain (task 5). The project is based on the know-how, skills, technical means, expertise, and complementarity of 6 scientific partners (IATE, AGIR, ARVALIS, GENIAL, PIHM, SMART), 2 technical partners (EVEA and OPTOmachines), and 2 partners representing the professional domain (CFSI and SIFPAF). All the actors of the durum wheat agrofood chain (cooperatives, industrialists, GIE, and plateforme blé dur) are integrated into the project via an advisory board, which will play a role of interface and transfer. The project aims to generate modern scientific and technical knowledge at the service of the innovation: agronomic innovations (to identify innovative technical ways based on a reduction of the use of synthetic inputs and energy, and the substitution ways); product innovations (grains with optimized protein potentials); processes innovations (energetic adaptation of the technological ways); equipments innovations (specifications for the re-design of equipments); coordination innovation of the actors of the chain (organization scenarios). The outputs of the project aim at meeting the expectations of actors of the agrofood chain for 3 issues. 1) Valuation of the scientific works to identify indicators of impacts at the 3 dimensions of the durability (environmental, economic, and social) at the different levels of the agrofood chain: farmers (quantity of the nitrogen inputs, water consumption, production costs), transformers (valuation of the protein potential, energy consumptions and process costs of 1st and of 2nde transformation), and actors of the agrofood chain (organizational models for the management of the "innovations", social aspects). 2) Design of confrontation tools based on the indicators of durability impacts, to elaborate strategies of multi-criteria analysis for equivalent uses, by integrating the levels of the chain (e.g. environmental integrated life cycle analysis). 3) Identification and quantification of the "relevant" levers and of the difficulties to solve, to improve and strengthen the durability of the durum wheat chain, in particular by reducing its energy dependence. The ambitions of the project can be quantified at different levels of the agrofood chain: reduction of the quantities of nitrogen fertilizer (25%), reduction of pesticides at the rotation scale (50%), and reduction of the energy consumptions by the processes (20%). All these actions will contribute to the sustainability of the durum wheat French agrofood chain, by improving its environmental efficiency and by strengthening its competitiveness.

The trade-off/synergy dilemma between economic development and ecosystem services is one of the major issues of sustainable rural development. The main research objective of TRUSTEE is to disentangle the complex relationships between economic development and ecosystem services at different spatial scales and on a large European gradient of rural and rural/urban areas. The project implements an interdisciplinary approach bringing together economists, geographers, agronomists, and ecologists. Sub-objectives are: (i) analyse the multi-scaled determinants of economic development and ecosystem services; (ii) increase our understanding of how to achieve mutual benefits for economic development in rural areas and ecosystem services; (iii) identify and assess the governance mechanisms and policy instruments that enhance sustainable rural vitality; (iv) produce synergies among international researchers of varied disciplines and between researchers and various stakeholders at different governance scales. The work plan relies on seven work packages that involve a cross-cutting strategy linking analyses at various scales (Pan European, gradient of EU countries, local case studies). TRUSTEE will provide a first quantification of the many–to-many relationship between ecosystem services and economic development. It will also produce (i) a large scale inventory of the socioeconomic and policy drivers of ecosystem service sets (ii) a large scale assessment of unlocking ecosystem service potential for rural economic development and (iii) a first internalization of ecosystem services in models of economic development. TRUSTEE will also produce analytical tools incorporating scenarios and policy instruments for the assessment of ecosystem services and their impact on rural development. Last, TRUSTEE will build capacity for interaction between a broad range of academics, experts, stakeholders and policy makers.

Global food security entails fertile soils capable of providing food for a growing population and also contributing to other needs such as energy, clothing, etc. However, soils also play a major role in flow regulation within the biosphere and host an important biodiversity underlying biological processes which contribute to overall ecosystem ecology and functioning. Sustainable management of cultivated soils must therefore combine provisioning ecosystem services to a web of supporting and regulation services. Such comprehensive management of soil ecosystem services (SES) is challenging due to the complexity of the positive or negative interactions between services and the difficulty to assess the impact of practices or management on these services. The main objective of the SOILSERV project is to combine biophysical and socio-economic approaches to assess at different spatial scales ecosystem services of agricultural soils and to analyze their economic valuation in farmers or public decisions. Within mixed agroecosystems involving crops, livestock production and uncultivated areas, SOILSERV aims at jointly evaluating provisioning (crop production), regulating (water quality, climate change, biodiversity conservation) and supporting (preservation of soil quality) ecosystem services and to study their interactions. The selected spatial scales correspond either to decision levels for agricultural practices (field, farm) and landscape management (the commune, set of farms) or to relevant scales in terms of biophysical processes (landscape, watershed). The project involves three research axes: (1) the biophysical assessment of SES at different spatial scales, by mobilizing and comparing descriptors derived from measures, modelling results or more easily accessible indicators; (2) the prediction at the required spatial scales of soil characteristics necessary to soil ecosystem services assessment, through innovative disaggregation and change of support approaches of existing soil spatial information; (3) the integration of soil-related information into farm management models and territory planning strategies in order to consider soil sustainability criteria into the decision-making process. By assembling a multidisciplinary academic team (agronomy, biogeochemistry, ecology, hydrology, pedology, spatial modelling and economy) with professional partners (consulting firm, metropolitan government), SOILSERV aims at clarifying the concepts and consolidate the methods of SES assessment, by identifying approaches best suited according to the target scale and available information. The joined biophysical evaluation of ecosystem services with their economic assessment within agricultural holdings and with territory planning procedures, intends to identify the social conditions and the potential impact on production and environment of a multi-SES strategy. In the end, SOILSERV aims at increasing the synergy between the ecosystem functioning and social organization of the territories, taking into account the complexity of the soils and associated uncertainties.

Consumers are currently affected by an unprecedented rise in inflation and this increase has been particularly severe in food and retail markets. This phenomenon relates to exogenous shocks, such as the COVID-19 crisis, but it may also respond to specific regulation or the exercise of market power at different levels of the retail chain. Not all countries and product markets are equally affected and this raises the question of why there exist heterogeneous effects. The goal of this project is to better document and understand this heterogeneity and to derive recommendations for economic policy. We focus on how the Producer And RETail markets Organization (PARETO) in several product categories and countries drives these effects. For this purpose, we will develop novel theories and exploit unique cross-country scanner and production data that has only recently become available. We divide our project into four work packages (WP). WP1 starts by documenting facts about pricing heterogeneity across countries, producers and retailers and attempts to identify the type of consumers that have been most affected by inflation. We estimate how different cost shocks faced by firms, such as changes in energy costs and taxes, translate into producer and consumer prices. Then, we ask what determines this pass-through of costs to prices and how policy makers can use this information to fight inflation. WP2 deals with producers’ and retailers’ market power, i.e. their ability to influence market prices and charge markups above their average costs. We will analyze whether the increase in markups that has been found in the US can also be observed in Europe, how and why it varies across markets and different levels of the vertical chain. We then study how policies that reveal additional information to consumers, e.g. about the nutritional content of retail products or producer margins, affect firms’ market power. WP3 has a methodological focus and deals with the question of how interdependencies between multiple unit of goods or multiple product categories can be modelled. These interdependencies are essential in retail markets where consumers often conduct most of their purchases in a single store. We will analyze how these interdependencies affect pricing strategies, the division of profit between retailers and producers, as well as the impact of regulatory policies. WP4 takes a dynamic perspective and analyzes the entry and exit of retailers and products with a particular focus on the rise of online retailing and the entry of hard discounters in different countries. We also study how different pricing schemes between retailers and producers, buyer power, mergers and buyer groups affect product entry and exit. The inflation resilience of households crucially depends on the producer-seller network and the ability of consumers to adjust their consumption following a price increase.

The FARM_VALUE project’s objective is to contribute to scientific knowledge and to provide new perspectives to farm stakeholders and policy-makers on farm transfers, focusing specifically on the role of the value of the farm in this process. The project aims at carrying for the first time in the literature a thorough assessment of how the value of a farm is assessed, both from economic and sociological points of view, and how both points of view can (or should) be fully integrated in the context of farm transfer. Studying the issue with both economic and sociological perspectives has never been done so far to our knowledge, although this is of high value for this particular issue: generally, the farm value used during transfers by professional stakeholders is given by economic or financial metrics; however, the latter do not account for sociological value (e.g. the fact that the farm assets are family assets), which may be so high that it prevents transfer. More specifically, we aim at (1) updating the current state of the art on farm value and suggesting methodological extensions or alternatives in particular from finance; (2) considering the diversity of components in a farm value, and in particular farm intangible assets, whether these are economic aspects (such as the role of the farm in a territory, managerial skills, payment rights or contracts) or sociological aspects (such as professional knowledge); (3) linking the value of a farm to its transfer, by analysing farmers' wealth accumulation strategies, transferred farms' performance, and the way shares are valued in partnership farms. The empirical application is to France, and in particular on dairy and beef cattle farming in three regions, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Bretagne. The dairy and beef cattle sector has been chosen here since it is particularly affected by succession problems: high farm value due to animals as well as buildings and machinery associated to the animals; hence, high transfer cost; low attractiveness due to hard working conditions implied by the care of animals day and night; and by contrast low profitability. The three main regions have been selected as they present various economic environments as well as different cultural heritage and social values. On a methodological point of view, we will make use of existing economic data that are little exploited for this issue, such as the French Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) and the European Household Finance and Consumption Survey. We will also perform a survey to hundreds of farmers to complement these data, as well as semi-directive interviews that allow account for personal ties between partners in a collective farm, and family ties over several generations.