How does allocation of farm resources best increase long-term soil sequestration, whilst maintaining or increasing overall farm productivity? What are the synergisms and trade-offs?
2.1: Farm characterization (including social economic and agronomic aspects) on each site
Main Objectif : To characterize and analyze the technical-economic functioning of farms in the targeted areas.
Specific Objectives : To build a farms typology based on resources endowment and technical-economic characteristics
To determine decision rules for each type of farms
Materials and Methods : Collecting existing data on farms characterization. Acquisition of missing information through farm surveys in order to produce a farm typology based on resource endowment (landed and soil quality, capital, work) and technical and economic characteristics. Selection of farms representative of each type to study their organization in details in order to identify their decision rules regarding their resources management (Birnholz et al. 2018). All this work will feed into tasks 2.2 and 2.3. In addition, it will also serve to form farmer groups for WPs 4.
2.2: Identifying the synergies and trade-offs between farm activities
Main Objectif : To identify alternative systems that find synergies between productivity, C sequestration and GHG balance at the farm level
Specific Objectives :
To model C fluxes at farm level between farm activities
To test on-field alternative practices and systems (designed with farmers) to improve C recycling efficiency
To analyze trade-offs and synergies between productivity, C storage and the GHG balance
Materials and Methods : The method will use farm-modelling.
Different farm-level stock-flow models were parameterized and used in previous projects (ex. NUANCES, KbbE Animal Change Project). They were used to simulate the different systems encountered in the different fields of the project FarmAC in Senegal, FarmSim in Zimbabwe. They will be reused to simulate alternative systems designed in the project in WP4. Practices like legumes intercropping, agroforestry, manure covering etc. will be simulated with the models to assess their impacts on the C cycle at the farm level.