Rémi PRUDHOMME

Rémi Prudhomme is currently a research fellow at the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD). His research focuses on prospective modeling of sustainable agricultural and food systems and their links with nature in a context of climate change, in collaboration with international partners, particularly in southern countries. Rémi Prudhomme works in particular on Senegal, where he has co-developed agricultural development scenarios with various local and international actors and assessed the country’s climate long-term strategy for its AFOLU sector.

Title of the presentation: A global agroecological scenario to stay within a safe agricultural space for biodiversity

Abstract: The agri-food system is at the heart of several environmental and health challenges to remain in a safe operating space on earth. The agricultural and food system is one of the main pressures on the environment, through farmland expansion, which damages “natural” ecosystems, and agricultural intensification, which affects not only agro-ecosystems but also natural ecosystems through air, water and animal transport. The lack of inclusion of the distant effects of agriculture on nature prevents us from knowing whether there is a combination of agricultural practices, diets and trade patterns that can simultaneously feed 10 billion people while conserving the different forms of biodiversity. To fill this gap, this study combines (i) the operationalization of the conceptual framework of the agricultural safe operating space for biodiversity (Garcia Vega et al., 2024) with (ii) a global model representing the agri-food system including some ecosystem services provided by these diverse landscapes. The safe operating agricultural space for biodiversity framework assumes that, in the absence of an explicit representation of biodiversity, it is possible to define levels of certain key agricultural system pressures (rotation, intercropping, landscape diversity, pesticide use, nitrogen use, animal density) to ensure that the agri-food system remains in a safe operating space for biodiversity. This modelling exercice will discuss the agricultural production reallocation and the changes in the agri-food system necessary to stay within this safe agricultural space for biodiversity.

Email: remi.prudhomme@cirad.fr