Building a shared vision of the future for multifunctional agricultural landscapes. Lessons from a long term socio-ecological research site in south-western France

In-situ start and end of growing season dates of major European crop types from France and Bulgaria at a field level

Crop phenology data offer crucial information for crop yield estimation, agricultural management, and assessment of agroecosystems. Such information becomes more important in the context of increasing year-to-year climatic variability. The dataset provides in-situ crop phenology data (first leaves emergence and harvest date) of major European crops (wheat, corn, sunflower, rapeseed) from seventeen field study sites in Bulgaria and two in France. Additional information such as the sowing date, area of each site, coordinates, method and equipment used for phenophase data estimation, and photos of the France sites are also provided. The georeferenced ground-truth dataset provides a solid base for a better understanding of crop growth and can be used to validate the retrieval of phenological stages from remote sensing data.

A network perspective for sustainable agroecosystems

Nature-based management aims to improve sustainable agroecosystem production, but its efficacy has been variable. We argue that nature-based agroecosystem management could be significantly improved by explicitly considering and manipulating the underlying networks of species interactions. A network perspective can link species interactions to ecosystem functioning and stability, identify influential species and interactions, and suggest optimal management approaches. Recent advances in predicting the network roles of species from their functional traits could allow direct manipulation of network architecture through additions or removals of species with targeted traits. Combined with improved understanding of the structure and dynamics of networks across spatial and temporal scales and interaction types, including social-ecological, applying these tools to nature-based management can contribute to sustainable agroecosystems.

Family Farming as a Key Element of the Multifunctional and Territorialized Agrifood Systems as Witnessed in the South Pacific Region of Costa Rica

In Central America, Family Farming (FF) is characterized by the fostering of endogenous development, self-sustaining economies, food safety and upholding the values of the agricultural landscape. However, government agricultural policies have promoted an external model of development based on industrial monocultures, which generates socioeconomic and environmental instability, deficient models of agroproduction commercialisation and the impoverishment of agricultural landscapes. This article details the case of 60 farms from 22 communities in the municipality of Buenos Aires, in the South Pacific region of Costa Rica, where biological/physical, socioeconomic, marketing and governance issues of a Multifunctional and Territorialized Agrifood System have been characterized based on the family unit of production. In addition, a differentiation was made between peasant and indigenous farmers as their cultural backgrounds may then lead to their adopting different attitudes and distinct actions. By analysing the productive diversification of the models, the behaviour of the local marketing channels and their associative potential, the socio-ecological characteristics of the region were identified, including the strengths and weaknesses that should influence the model of agroproductive development and regional governance.

Individual Tree Crown Delineation Method Based on Multi-Criteria Graph Using Geometric and Spectral Information: Application to Several Temperate Forest Sites

Individual tree crown (ITC) delineation in temperate forests is challenging owing to the presence of broadleaved species with overlapping crowns. Mixed coniferous/deciduous forests with characteristics that differ with the type of tree thus require a flexible method of delineation. The ITC delineation method based on the multi-criteria graph (MCG-Tree) addresses this problem in temperate monospecific or mixed forests by combining geometric and spectral information. The method was used to segment trees in three temperate forest sites with different characteristics (tree types, species distribution, planted or natural forest). Compared with a state-of-the-art watershed segmentation approach, our method increased delineation performance by up to 25%. Our results showed that the main geometric criterion to improve delineation quality is related to the crown radius (performance improvement around 8%). Coniferous/deciduous classification automatically adapts the MCG-Tree criteria to the type of tree. Promising results are then obtained to improve delineation performance for mixed forests.