Estimation Of Crop Rotation Effects With "Observed" Crop Sequence Acreages

Résumé En

Despite many benefits provided by crop rotation, their effects are rarely measured, mainly due to lacking information on farmers’ crop sequences acreages. The goal of this paper is to estimate crop rotation effects on yields and input uses levels by exploiting various data sources. We also use expert knowledge information to assess the reliability of our estimates. Our econometric approach relies on simple statistical models of yield and input uses at the crop sequence level. Our results show that farmers account for crop rotation effects when choosing their crop sequence acreages. These effects are generally consistent with the rankings provided by the experts concerning the effects on yields, with some inconsistencies occurring in the rankings of the effects on fertilizers and pesticides uses. We also show that crop diversification is positively associated with crop yields and negatively associated with pesticides expenditures while the relation with nitrogen use is unclear.