Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The Paris basin area is emblematic because it is currently one of the
most intensive cereals-producing areas in the world; some people even
consider as its vocation to export grain to the rest of the world. This view
should be tempered by the fact that most of these exports are currently
intended for other European countries where a large part is used for ani-
mal feed. Nevertheless, what is striking in the OrgLoc and OrgLocDem
scenarios is that they allow the Seine basin area to continue exporting a
large share of its cereals production and in fact have a larger net export of
proteins than in the current situation.
This purely biogeochemical approach is obviously restrictive and does
not take into account the reluctance of either farmers, invested in their
current technical, economic and social network, to shift their practices to
organic farming, or consumers to change their eating habits so deeply em-
FIGURE 6:
Schematic representation of the nitrogen imprint of the food supply of one
Paris inhabitant in the organic-localdemitarian scenario. The nitrogen fluxes involved are
expressed in kgNinhab
−1
yr
−1
.
