Etienne Hainzelin: "Ecological intensification gives producers' engineering skills their rightful place"

24/02/2010 - Article

The topic of ecological intensification, chosen by CIRAD for its stand at this year's Paris International Agricultural Show, encompasses a range of issues. It also lies at the heart of the establishment's operations. Interview with Etienne Hainzelin, Director of Research and Strategy at CIRAD.

Producing more, better, making optimum use of nature's functions... is ecological intensification a fad or a radical change?

Etienne Hainzelin : Well, it's obviously more than a fad. It is a far-reaching movement that is currently gaining speed. We are beginning to see the limitations of various natural resources: cultivable soils, oil, water, etc. For instance, there are rumours that phosphate, one of the three basic elements in all mineral fertilizers, is running out. Having quantified these resources, it looks like we can stave off the danger, but the basic problem remains: we need to feed the planet by producing the necessary biomass on a limited area, with limited resources, taking account of the effects on the environment. In view of these limitations, while aiming for high yields, agriculture needs to use fewer inputs and make optimum use of natural ecological functions to boost production.

CIRAD's teams are far from unfamiliar with this type of approach, but what is different about it?

E.H. : CIRAD's teams have been working for some time on integrated agricultural solutions. In some cases, CIRAD can be considered to have taken visionary steps. For instance, we have been working for more than 25 years on direct seeding, mulch-based systems, which mirror nature. There are also several successful examples of biological control of pests and diseases, such as white grubs in Réunion, work on breeding and inoculating nitrogen-fixing bacteria to cut nitrogen fertilizer use, etc. However, these approaches have often been limit to specific sectors or questions. We now need to integrate them into a more systemic vision of the environment, on scales ranging from plot to region, taking account of not one but all of the effects of a given operation on plot functioning and its impact on the environment. This also once again raises the question of the need to contextualize solutions, given the wide range of situations and combinations of solutions. As Michel Griffon says, this is why agriculture that is intensive in terms of ecology is also intensive in terms of knowledge. There won't be any "ready-made" solutions. It is producers who will be combining their own knowledge of their environment, constraints and planting material with the knowledge and tools provided by research, to come up with "tailor-made" solutions. This re-establishes the role of producers in both North and South in building and implementing real production engineering operations.

What are the main research topics or questions covered by ecological intensification?

E.H. : They are generally conventional questions, but which need to be reformulated. For instance, planting material improvement, which has been at the heart of agricultural intensification for 80 years, but to which we probably need to apply new criteria (quality, hardiness, tolerance). There is also crop protection, a fundamental issue for production in view of the current drive to reduce pesticide use, for which we need to be thinking in terms of striking a balance rather than in terms of eradication. One other example is crop mineral nutrition, which means optimizing root functioning, soil biology and mineral balances. All these factors open up new research fields such as "service plants", complex plant stands, etc. Lastly, since ecological intensification implicitly means building producers' capacity, it brings us back to a fundamental part of sustainable development, the social aspect, involving taking account of producers' learning capacity.

What are the stakes for developing countries in terms of ecological intensification?

E.H. : The fundamental issue is obviously food security, since the aim is to boost agricultural production. More broadly speaking, the objective for developing countries is to master their farming systems, notably through a productive rural social fabric. The idea that jobs and development lie in large urban centres has had its day. As far as I am concerned, rural employment is probably the main factor for stabilization and development in these countries. Public health is also a major issue: intensifying farming by using inputs has led to many problems in this field, as shown by the pollution of water tables by periurban agriculture, which has a direct effect on local people, or the old stocks of dangerous pesticides that are still being sold illegally in developing countries. Lastly, we are placing our hopes in education, since intensifying knowledge will address a need in this sector. Farmers will not be able to apply established recipes; they will have to organize themselves. All this is underlain by the emergence of a power among farmers to influence policy decisions. This may look like a separate element, but it is also part of the equation.

Interview by Elsa Bru