Agriculture
Crop diversification and grazed pastures increase the stability of agricultural productivity
In an article published in PNAS Nexus in December 2025, Mathieu Delandmeter compares the impact of 18 agricultural management scenarios on the American Midwest, covering 48 million hectares. His research, based on a modeling approach validated by field experiments, shows that in order to stimulate ecosystem services and limit the negative impact of agriculture on the environment, it is necessary to diversify crops and reduce nitrogen fertilization. Integrating grasslands and livestock into crop rotations also increases production stability and resilience to extreme weather events.
Mathieu Delandmeter, Bruno Basso, Neville Millar, Lydia Price, Tommaso Tadiello, Jason Rowntree, João Paulo Sacramento, Prateek Sharma, Jérôme Bindelle, Benjamin Dumont, Boosting ecosystem services and farm economics with crop diversity and livestock integration using a validated modeling approach, PNAS Nexus, Volume 4, Issue 12, December 2025, pgaf377
Video explaining the thesis
Following on from the article published in PNAS Nexus, Mathieu Delandmeter (former FNRS researcher at Gx-ABT) has produced a video with CPIG to explain the methodology and some of the key findings of his thesis. This video introduces the soil-crop-atmosphere modeling approach, which makes it possible to investigate different agroecological scenarios on large spatial and temporal scales under climate change scenarios. It also shows that activating agroecological levers can stimulate various ecosystem services.
Published on 1/16/26
