# A multi-criteria tool for jointly assessing the sustainability and resilience of dairy farms

Julie Auberger, Corentin Babin, Joséphine Dupont, Sylvain Busnot, Virginie Parnaudeau, Anne-Lise Jacquot, Olivier Godinot, Sandra Novak, Thomas Puech, Francoise Vertès, et al.

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## ► To cite this version:

Julie Auberger, Corentin Babin, Joséphine Dupont, Sylvain Busnot, Virginie Parnaudeau, et al. A multi-criteria tool for jointly assessing the sustainability and resilience of dairy farms. 18th Congress of the European Society for Agronomy, European Society for Agronomy, l'Institut Agro Rennes-Angers, Aug 2024, Rennes, France. *hal-04724722*

HAL Id: hal-04724722

https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04724722v1

Submitted on 7 Oct 2024

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# A multi-criteria tool for jointly assessing the sustainability and resilience of dairy farms

Author(s) [J. Auberger, C. Babin, J. Dupont, S. Busnot, O. Godinot, A.-L. Jacquot, S. Novak, V. Parnaudeau, T. Puech, F. Vertès, V. Viaud, A. Wilfart, A. Kernaleguen, M. Carof]

INRAE, UMR SAS

INRAE

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L'INSTITUT
agro Rennes
Angers

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cedapa

This work was funded by the Agronomy and environmental sciences for Agroecosystems and Animal physiology and livestock systems research departments of INRAE

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L'INSTITUT
agro Rennes
Angers

INRAE

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ESA
EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR AGRONOMY
> Context

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Created by Nithinan Tatal

* Livestock: a major contributor to environmental impacts

* Agro-ecological transition, for dairy farms:

* increase the share of grass in animal diet (Wezel et Peters, 2014)

* dependence to grass growth, and climate (Graux et al., 2019)

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Created by Alice Change

* Grass-based dairy farms have less environmental impact; are they more resilient?

* To climate change, in particular

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* Create and apply a tool for jointly assessing the sustainability and resilience of dairy farms

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INRAO

A multi-criteria tool for jointly assessing the S&R of dairy farms
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# Creation of the tool

## Materials and methods

Collaboration with group of farmers and advisers promoting grass (CEDAPA)

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Adapted from
Babin, 2022
> Assessing a group of dairy farms

Materials and methods

• 23 farms of CEDAPA, assessed with the tool

* Analysis of the determinants of sustainability and resilience (S&R)

• Principal Component Analysis and Hierarchical Clustering using the tool's indicators as input variables (R software, version 4.2.2).

• Association with technical and economic descriptors of the farms.

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# How to assess jointly sustainability and resilience?

## Results

* Existing tensions between the concepts:

<table><thead><tr><td></td><td>Sustainability</td><td>Resilience</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Assumptions</td><td>Stability</td><td>Constants changes</td></tr><tr><td>Lever</td><td>Efficiency (resource use)</td><td>Diversity of resources</td></tr><tr><td>Properties of systems</td><td>Productivity, autonomy, involvement, viability...</td><td>Buffer, adaptive and transformative capability.</td></tr></tbody></table>

Adapted from Roostaie et al., 2019 and Babin, 2022

* Question:

* Does the farm achieve the sustainability objectives and to what extent these objectives can be maintained when facing disturbances (resilience)?
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# Conceptual framework

## Results

* Based on properties of sustainable and resilient systems, taking into account the overlap between the concepts

* 6 properties, 37 indicators

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# Sustainability and resilience assessment

## Results

* 23 farms assessed, 13 in organic agriculture (OA), 10 in conventional agriculture (CA)

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* Fifteen farms in the two most sustainable and resilient classes,

* Five farms in the intermediate class,

* Three farms in the two least sustainable and resilient classes

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INRAO

A multi-criteria tool for jointly assessing the S&R of dairy farms
## Farm strategies and S&R performances

### Results

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# Farm strategies and S&R performances

## Results

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# Farm strategies and S&R performances

## Results

### Cluster 2: 11 farms

Dairy production + diversification, with maize and grass forage system
10 farms in CA, high income.

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Economic efficiency, high income

Diversification of productions

### Cluster 1: 8 farms

Specialised in dairy production, with grass-based forage system
Organic farming, high income.

Socio and environmental dimension

### Cluster 3: 4 farms

Dairy production + diversification, with grass-based forage system
Organic farming, medium income.

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# Farm strategies and S&R performances

## Results

### Cluster 2: 11 farms

Dairy production + diversification, with maize and grass forage system
10 farms in CA, high income.

**S&R performance**

Class 1: 3 Class 3: 3

Class 2: 3 Class 4: 1

Class 5: 1

**Economic dimension**

Economic efficiency, high income

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Diversification of productions

### Cluster 1: 8 farms

Specialised in dairy production, with grass-based forage system

Organic farming, high income.

**S&R performance**

Class 1: 4 Class 3: 1

Class 2: 3

**Socio and environmental dimension**

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### Cluster 3: 4 farms

Dairy production + diversification, with grass-based forage system

Organic farming, medium income.

**S&R performance**

Class 1: 2 Class 3: 1

Class 2: 0 Class 4: 1
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# Farm strategies and S&R performances

## Results

### Cluster 2: 11 farms

Dairy production + diversification, with maize and grass forage system
10 farms in CA, high income.

#### S&R performance

Class 1: 3 Class 3: 3

Class 2: 3 Class 4: 1

Class 5: 1

#### Economic dimension

Economic efficiency, high income

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Diversification of productions

### Cluster 1: 8 farms

Specialised in dairy production, with grass-based forage system

Organic farming, high income.

#### S&R performance

Class 1: 4 Class 3: 1

Class 2: 3

#### Socio and environmental dimension

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /></figure>

### Cluster 3: 4 farms

Dairy production + diversification, with grass-based forage system

Organic farming, medium income.

#### S&R performance

Class 1: 2 Class 3: 1

Class 2: 0 Class 4: 1

The three production strategies can achieve satisfactory levels of S&R
> Discussion and conclusion

* Farms assessed achieve good S&R performances.

* Does the tool sort farms too easily into the most favourable classes ?

* Monte Carlo analysis

<table><thead><tr><td>Very poorly S&R</td><td>Poorly S&R</td><td>Moderately S&R</td><td>Fairly S&R</td><td>Sustainable and resilient</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>0,579</td><td>0,175</td><td>0,181</td><td>0,055</td><td>0,01</td></tr></tbody></table>

* Does the tool favour CEDAPA farming practices ?

* To validate the tool : need to test it on a second set of farms, with other farm practices

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Thank you for your attention

julie.auberger@inrae.fr

This work was funded by the "Agronomy and environmental sciences for Agroecosystems" and "Animal physiology and livestock systems" research departments of INRAE.
> DEXi : multi-criteria assessment method

* DEXi : sorts individuals into classes

* Aggregation at nodes is based on decision rules

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DEXi (Bohanec, 2008)

INRAO

A multi-criteria
of dairy farms

the S&F

8th ESA congress, Rennes, France
> Indicators reflecting the ability to maintain sustainability objectives

* Sensitivity of economic efficiency to climate change (% of variation of EE in a difficult year compared with a 5-year average)

* <5 is good, > 10 is low

* Sensitivity of forage autonomy to climate change (% of variation of forage autonomy in a difficult year compared with a 3-year average)

* Forage storage (safety stock, monthes)

* 1 is low, 2 is good

* percentage difference between milk selling price and breakeven price

* < 20 is very low, 20 is very good

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