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Disentangling the drivers of fertilising material inflows in organic farming

Nowak, Benjamin; Nesme, Thomas; David, Christophe and Pellerin, Sylvain (2013) Disentangling the drivers of fertilising material inflows in organic farming. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, pp. 79-91.

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Document available online at: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02650787


Summary

Organic farming systems are often nutrient-limited. Moreover, even if organic guidelines emphasize the reliance on ecological processes and recycling, the trend towards farm specialisation induces an increased reliance on off-farm fertilising materials in arable areas. There is, therefore, a need to better understand the drivers of nutrient inflows on organic farms. Our objectives were to assess the nitrogen (N,) phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) farm-gate inflows through fertilising materials, and the nutrient budget and use efficiency over a large range of organic farming systems. To do this, 56 interviews with organic farmers concerning their nutrient management for the years 2010 and 2011 were carried out in 2012 in three French agricultural districts distributed over a gradient of farming activity. The results showed that the farm-gate fertilising material inflows were strongly related to both the ratio of land under cereal and oilseed crops (proxy of nutrient ‘demand’) and the stocking rate (proxy of nutrient ‘supply’). However, other inflows (biological N fixation, feed use, fodders and straws) increased with the stocking rate, leading to low farm-gate N and K use efficiency (0.2 and 0.7, respectively) on livestock farms compared to arable, stockless farms (1.4 and 3.5, respectively). Such results helped to disentangle the drivers of nutrient use in organic farms compared to previous analyses based solely on farm production typology.


EPrint Type:Journal paper
Keywords:Organic farming; Nutrient cycling; Farm-gate budget; Nutrient use efficiency (en)
Subjects:"Organics" in general
Research affiliation: France > INRAe - Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement
ISSN:ISSN: 1385-1314
DOI:10.1007/s10705-013-9578-5
Project ID:HAL-INRAe
Deposited By: PENVERN, Servane
ID Code:40977
Deposited On:12 Aug 2021 10:37
Last Modified:12 Aug 2021 10:37
Document Language:English

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