You will participate in the Horizon Europe Transformative Change for Biodiversity and Equity project (TC4BE). The global teleconnected food supply system is facing climate, food, ecological and geochemical challenges. To meet these challenges, in this project we are seeking to identify a food system that is (i) compatible with high levels of agricultural biodiversity and (ii) not detrimental to biodiversity in natural areas and avoids leakage of agricultural pollutants to these areas (Aubert & Garcia-Vega, 2020).
Your work will be to estimate the agricultural and environmental performances of agroecological practices that are compatible with high levels of agricultural biodiversity now and in 2050 and implement them into a biomass flow model called BiodivA.
As part of the CIRED team, you will work with Patrice Dumas and Rémi Prudhomme, who are developing global biomass flow and geochemical cycle models. You will also be supported by agricultural scientists working in other Cirad units (AIDA and HortSys) and by researchers from IDDRI (a partner of Cirad) in the TC4BE project.
Initially you will calculate the effects on yields of 3 agricultural practices, using existing literature on the subject: the presence of semi-natural vegetation in the agricultural landscape, intercropping and agroforestry. For example, building a model describing the influence of semi-natural vegetation in the landscape will make it possible to estimate the current effect of a simplification of the agricultural landscapes on the loss of yields of pollinated crops (Garibaldi et al.,2020).
In a second stage, you will calculate the areas in which these practices are currently carried out, on the basis of existing literature or spatialised data. You will also deduce the permissible production losses or gains compared to conventional agriculture.
Thirdly, you will complete a nitrogen balance for pasture as was done for crops (Zhang et al., 2021) to estimate the nitrogen losses from pasture land in the environment. Some factors in this balance are already known, although uncertain, such as nitrogen biological fixation in natural grasslands, the ruminant density and the pasture area (Fetzel et al., 2017). You will be in charge of estimating the missing factors and balancing them.
Finally, the results you will have obtained in the previous stages will enable the rest of the Cirad team to develop the BiodivA biophysical modelling tool.
The following results are expected from your work:
-Assessment of overall production gains/losses linked to the lack of semi-natural vegetation in agricultural landscapes and the current use of intercropping and agroforestry at a global scale;
– A complete nitrogen balance for pasture;
– Insertion of these assessments into the BiodivA biophysical balance model.
• You should have a PhD (obtained less than 3 years ago) in Global Agricultural Science / Systemic Agricultural Science
• Proficiency in the use of biophysical flow modelling tools;
• Good scientific writing skills in English;
• Knowledge of meta-analysis methods would be an advantage;
• Programming skills in one of the following languages: python, shell, R, etc.;
• Enthusiasm for developing your own knowledge, independence and capacity to formulate proposals;
• Good written and spoken English.