The Need for Systematic Approaches to evaluate Agricultural Practices

Damien Beillouin

CIRAD hortsys

Introduction

Human impact on the Earth’s land surface is accelerating.

The Urgency of Action: Global Biodiversity Framework

Ensuring sustainable use of biodiversity in agriculture is a major societal challenge.

  • Target 10 of the GBF calls for biodiversity-friendly agriculture (IPBES 2019)


  • Actions must be based on robust scientific evidence to halt biodiversity loss and restore ecosystem functioning.



A Data Overload

Thousands of papers are published yearly on agricultural impacts on biodiversity.
How can decision-makers digest this vast information?


Yet, a possible fragmented landscape

Challenge for clear, actionable insights needed by policymakers and practitioners

  • Biases may arise due to over- or under-representation of specific regions or taxa, publication bias

  • Heterogeneity or contradictory results in meta-analyses



Our Proposal: Synthesize meta-analyses

We synthesized meta-analyses on agricultural practices and biodiversity, with the objectives:

  • Quantify the effects of agricultural practices on biodiversity by consolidating results of meta-analyses
  • Facilitate access to and the use of global estimates
  • Describe the current state of knowledge and identify research gaps and over-researched areas.
  • Make recommendations for future studies.

Method : research

Results : Structure of the evidence

Agricultural Impact Studies Dominated by High-Income Countries

  • High-Income Contribution: 50%+ from USA, China, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Australia, and Spain.

  • Less than 10% of studies focus on Africa

  • Prioritize biodiversity hotspots

Biodiversity Hotspot

An uneven focus on agricultural interventions and biodiversity

  • 60% of research : individual practices

  • 50% of research focus on arthropods and unspecified microorganisms

  • 40% of research focus on abundance/biomass metrics

Impacts of management practices: overview

Impacts of Land-use change: details

Toward an integrated and automatically updated plateform

Take home messages

Impacts of Agricultural Practices on Biodiversity

is incredibly complex (vast amount of data, potential biases, and local effects…).


However, this complexity should not deter us from taking action!

Instead, it calls for concrete steps to enhance our understanding and management:



  1. Continue to produce, aggregate and facilitate access to these data.



  2. Address Local farmer and Policy Needs



Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Jonathan Bonfanti, Sarah Jones and all the team for their support and contributions.

  • Global review of meta-analyses reveals key data gaps in agricultural impact studies on biodiversity in croplands: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.19.590051v1.full