A documentary by Mathieu Casino on the design of rice cropping systems conducted as part of the "AC-Riz Camargue" project implemented by CIRAD and the French Rice Centre between 2020 and 2022.
An initial R&D phase developed high-performance cereal systems that are more resilient to climate change in the upper Camargue. It moved forward rapidly, in interaction with farmers, drawing on CIRAD's work on conservation agriculture for rice in tropical environments and conservation agriculture systems developed in mainland France.
In strengthening cultivated biodiversity and ensuring continuous cycles of biomass production and return to the soil, conservation agriculture is laying the foundations for ecological intensification of cropping and production systems that are thus better able to meet the many challenges facing agriculture in the Camargue.
Further work will enable us to respond more effectively to the diversity of producers' objectives and to improve the economic and environmental performance of conservation farming systems. This could be achieved by integrating annual double cropping, forage production or field market gardening (melon, tomato, etc.).
In the lowest-lying areas of the Camargue, where there are major constraints due to waterlogging and salinization of both the soil and irrigation water, the redesign of cropping and production systems will have to be coupled with a review of the changes required in terms of installations and the concerted management of irrigation on a "hydraulic mesh" scale.
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24 апр 2024
