Agro-ecology in action: The environmental oasis projects
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Author(s)Emmanuelle Reynaud ,Francois FulconisLink to ORCID Index: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4989-1348
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Gilles PachéLink to ORCID Index: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9316-0251
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DOIhttp://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ee.10(1).2019.05
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Article InfoVolume 10 2019, Issue #1, pp. 66-78
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153 Downloads
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Agro-ecology is now considered as an alternative model to the industrial agricultural model. Faced with the limitations of conventional production models, agro-ecology is emerging today as a possible response to the challenges of the 21st century: food security, circularity, respect for the environment, and development of employment. More generally, the adoption of circular principles aims to decouple environmental pressure from agricultural productivism. Agro-ecology is a relevant research topic because it aims to ensure sustainable and resilient agricultural production, to empower local farmers, to protect the environment and to fight against climate change. This article focuses on the French Oasis projects, as part of the “Hummingbird movement” initiated by Pierre Rabhi, and which represent a successful agro-ecological experience, in economic, social and environmental terms. Different data were collected by compiling information available on the website of 76 Oasis projects across France: people living in the community; lodging possibilities; availability of a school; and direct relationship with local farmers. Then, a social factorial correspondence analysis and an environmental factorial correspondence analysis were realized to evaluate the impacts of environmental Oasis projects. The results show that profitable organizations seem to conduct more social and environmental activities in an agro-ecology context, and they put in place more actions than those who have no profitable aims.
- Keywords
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JEL Classification (Paper profile tab)L33, Q18, Q57
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References50
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Tables6
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Figures3
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- Figure 1. Representation of the social factorial correspondence analysis
- Figure 2. Representation of the environmental factorial correspondence analysis
- Figure 3. Economic and ecological loops
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- Table 1. Transgression of the nine “planetary boundaries”
- Table 2. Environmental actions undertaken by the Oasis projects (2018)
- Table 3. Social grades
- Table 4. Coordinates for the graph: social aspect
- Table 5. Environmental grades
- Table 6. Coordinates for the graph: environmental aspects
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Assessing the level of organic farming development in the European countries
Viktoriia Baidala 
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Vira Butenko ,
Vitalii Vakulenko ,
Pavlo Yastrebov ,
Liu Xiaowei
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ee.15(1).2024.05
Organic farming is an essential approach to agriculture that seeks to reduce the negative impact of human activities on the environment and ensure the sustainability of food production. The study aims to determine the integral index of the development of organic farming and to create a clustering model of organic farming in European countries. As a research methodology, additive-multiplicative convolution was used to determine the integral index of organic farming development. Cluster analysis (the Ward method and the k-means clustering method) identified respective clusters. The integrated index is based on eight indicators of organic farming from the Eurostat database, 2012–2020, and ranges from zero to one. The following countries have the highest value of the integral index: Italy (0.57), France (0.54), Spain (0.54), Germany (0.45), and Turkey (0.47). Three clusters were identified according to eight indicators of organic agriculture. The first cluster includes countries-leaders in agricultural territories (about 2.1 million hectare) with the highest state financial support for agricultural research and development (1.1 billion euros). The second cluster includes countries with the most minor organic farming operators (50-100 operators). The third cluster includes countries with the highest index of annual income from the sale of farm products (200-220 points) but with the highest level of usage of dangerous pesticides (250 points). The heterogeneity of clusters allows one to determine the strengths and weaknesses of organic farming in European countries.
