Changing the way we farm: Good for people and good for the planet

Our current food systems may be highly efficient, but they are not sustainable. They contribute to a loss of biodiversity, and the pollution of soil, air and water... As well as contributing to climate change.

Farming practices in Normandy, in the north of France, still have high levels of chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Europe's objective is to halve their use by 2030.

Conventional farmers like Emmanuel Drique, have successfully made the transition from intensive farming and has turned to agroecology.  

 "Traditionally, we grow wheat after flax, but I don't do that, I grow rapeseed. It's a plant that will capture nitrogen in the autumn, so it does not leak into the water table. This way I recover nitrogen for my rapeseed, so I don't have to apply as much chemical nitrogen myself. It's a win-win.

I started out with a very intensive system. It was based on a lot of fertilisers and chemicals, with technical results that weren't necessarily up to scratch. So I asked myself a lot of questions about how we could do things differently. But what is going to force us to move much faster is the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity, and the third element is the energy crisis."

A major European framework law for sustainable food systems should soon place nature restoration at the heart of all agricultural policies. Bertrand Omon is an agronomist and he says public authorities have the responsibility to immediately encourage the transition to other models.

"The economic demonstration we've been doing with this group for the past 10 years is that they're not losing money and that the gain is in the common goods. But for other people, since there's no economic surplus, they don't make the change. In any case, this