Regional conversion to organic farming in Camargue, south France: a multiscale integrated assessment of scenarios

The rapid growth of organic agriculture in the last decade suggests that this form of farming might become more common and its extension may cover large parts of certain regions. The regional conversion to Organic Farming (OF) might represent great advantages in terms of ecosystems integrity and local natural resources conservation. However, is this regional conversion plausible? What could be the impact of such conversion for agricultural production and nature conservation? Taking into account the heterogeneity of farms and farming systems in a region, are there farming systems more easily convertible than others? The objective of this paper is to show the results of different scenario analyses about the extension of OF in Camargue, South of France. The application of different modeling approaches with great potential for the multi-scale and multi-criteria evaluation scenarios is presented. These models include Bioeconomic models, Agent-based models and Land use/cover change models. According to our results, in the Camargue, the most probable conversion in the near future would take place in fields with low salt pressure belonging to livestock breeders and diversified cereal producers. However, the regional conversion to OF is plausible as the region could maintain its economic productivity while decreasing the potential harmful effect to the environment. Finally, the possible trajectories of conversion suggest that certain farmers (specialized in rice production) might need greater help to assure such conversion to OF as their economic performance is hampered during that period. The application of these three modeling approaches to assess the same scenario in one region revealed their complementarity for exploring the issue of regional conversion to OF from different angles and at different scales.