# When farmers commit to supporting their organic farming system: how to talk about positive externalities from sustainability diagnosis?

Léa Philippe, Rémy Ballot

► To cite this version:

Léa Philippe, Rémy Ballot. When farmers commit to supporting their organic farming system: how to talk about positive externalities from sustainability diagnosis?. The Euroleague for Life Sciences, Nov 2025, Uppsala (Suède), Sweden. hal-05385558

HAL Id: hal-05385558

https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05385558v1

Submitted on 27 Nov 2025

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# When farmers commit to supporting their organic farming system: how to talk about positive externalities from sustainability diagnosis?

Authors : Léa Philippe and Rémy Ballot

Université Paris-Saclay AgroParisTech INRAE UMR Agronomie

L'INSTITUT
agro Rennes
Angers

## CONTEXT

The Saffré area, a 5,800-hectars drinking water catchment in western France, aims to achieve pesticide-free agriculture by 2040. To support this goal, a group of 9 organic livestock farmers was created to strengthen organic farming in the area, an agriculture which doesn't use pesticides. Each farm underwent a diagnosis upon joining the group. The diagnosis results were then used in communication strategies promoting the benefits of organic farming, in a context of declining consumer demand. This work is carried out within a research-action project that aims at designing pesticide-free territories.

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## METHODOLOGY

### Sustainability diagnosis

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IDEA

Diagnosis of the economic, agroecologic and social perforances of the 9 farms of the group using IDEA4 method.

### Data Collection :

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Semi-structured interviews of multiple actors (collectivities, institutes, etc.)

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## RESULT

* The "GIEE" group (9 farms) was compared to the "Bovin Grand Ouest" group, composed of farms with similar characteristics.

* On average, the GIEE group achieved higher scores than the comparison group across all three dimensions

* The agroecological dimension was particularly higher and more homogeneous within the GIEE group. This can be explained by the larger share of grassland and the lower reliance on external inputs, which together contribute to reduce pesticide use and improve water quality.

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## CONCLUSION

An on-farm event was held on October 1st for local representatives. It helped decision-makers better understand the benefits of local organic farming through the diagnosis results. The positive feedback highlighted the need to continue such initiatives by engaging other local representatives. Next steps will involve communicating with citizens and schoolchildren, possibly in collaboration with local representatives.

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