Farming systems design: complementarities between experts' prototyping and modeling

Farmers are facing a great number of constraints that complicate the process of farming system (FS) adaptation. In the Camargue region, Southern France, the farmers must notably (i) adapt to the Common Agricultural Policy reform that implies the suppression of the coupled payment for rice, (ii) reduce pesticide use, (iii) and reduce greenhouse gas emissions while (iv) improving energy efficiency and (v) ensuring food provision for local and global market. To account for these multiple objectives in the design of new (FS), prototyping by experts and modeling have proved their usefulness. In this paper, we present the complementary application of these two approaches to design sustainable FS in the Camargue