In the context of the current agricultural specialisation in Europe, intercropping, an agroecological practice corresponding to mixtures of arable crops in the same field, is particularly relevant. By reintroducing diversity in arable lands, it could help counterbalance the negative effects of agricultural specialisation. However, despite its many proven benefits, – e.g., increased cereal protein content, increased yield stability, etc. -, intercropping remains virtually absent from European agricultural systems.
The current European agricultural systems are grounded in strong interdependencies between actors. They are “locked” in their current position and any actor wishing to implement intercropping face many obstacles, called “barriers”. The promotion of intercropping therefore starts by identifying the barriers it faces, which is a prerequisite for designing appropriate solutions to overcome them.
This was the work led by the Sytra research team (Earth and Life Institute, UCLouvain) during the first year of the IntercropVALUES project. Based on several interactions with the leaders of the 13 Co-Innovation Case Studies (CICS) involved in the project, we identified the barriers to the use of intercropping in each CICS, considering the whole food value chain.
In total, 189 different barriers were identified, the majority of which affects farmers. This can seem logical, as intercropping, as an agroecological cropping method, may be considered as only a farmer-related practice. However, our work also shows that other actors of the agrifood value chain (e.g., collectors, processors, ….) are affected by some barriers. These barriers make the downstream actors of the agrifood value chains less prone to accept products coming from intercropping, leaving farmers with less opportunities to sell this kind of production. The lack of market for intercropping products was mentioned as a major bottleneck. The spreading of intercropping won’t happen without inviting all actors of the agrifood value chain to engage in dialogue.
Although technical barriers may be the first to come to mind when talking about intercropping, barriers to the use of intercropping are in fact of a diversity of types: technical, but also cultural, linked to the environmental & political context, financial, knowledge-related, market-related, and organisational. In addition, the major type of barriers varies according to the level of the agrifood value chains that is considered.
This first step of analysis gives interesting insight on what prevents the development of intercropping and paves the way for the design of efficient solutions to promote its use. The next steps or our work will include (i) a cross-case analysis of barriers aiming at identifying characteristics explaining the differences and similarities of barriers between CICS, (ii) an analysis of causal relationships and temporal dynamics between barriers within each CICS, and (iii) the identification, within the list of 189 barriers, of the most significant ones, i.e., the ones that should be tackled first.
If you want to read the full report, you can find it here.
For more information, please visit Sytra
This news tiem was written by Céline Chevalier (UCLouvain)