Improving the farms performance with winter pea in crop rotation cycle (Normandy, France)

The case study is based on a GIEE (Groupement d’Intérêt Economique et Environnemental) on winter pea. The GIEE is a project made up of a dozen farms located in the Pays de Bray (Normandy, France).

The objectives of the project are to produce and disseminate references on growing winter pea based on the pilot farms in order to verify if this crop can solve the problems of the farmers of the Pays de Bray while guaranteeing the economic, environmental and social performance of farms.

More precisely, the project aims:

- To study the feasibility of growing winter pea in the territory, and the opportunities and the valorization of this crop

- To evaluate the performance of this crop from a technical, economic, environmental and social point of view.

The technical support provided to the farmers is about monitoring the plots in the field, producing local references with the setting up of trials (varieties, fungicidal strategy) setting up technical demonstrations and disseminating technical results during the season and at the end of the crop year. Moreover, the project seeks to evaluate the triple performance of winter pea in farming systems by calculating economic, environmental and social indicators on plots and farms.

This project is carried out in collaboration with a school of agricultural engineer (ESITPA) in particular for their scientific support and expertise on the soil. A three-year research project has been submitted to study the effect of the introduction of this crop on rotations on nitrogen dynamics and microbial communities. But also with technical institutes, Terres Inovia and Terres Univia which also accompany this project (technical and scientific support, national testing network, contacts with seed producers, etc.).