Crop diversification practices in Europe: an economic cross-case study comparison

[EN] Crop diversification practices (CDPs) are alternative strategies aimed to achieve sustainable cropping systems and food production overcoming the agro-environmental impacts of conventional cropping systems such as monoculture. Thus, this paper aims to improve the knowledge of implementing CDPs in different European pedoclimatic regions by assessing the economic performance at the farm level. CDPs are compared with conventional cropping systems and clustered in terms of their gross margin (GM) results and variations. Farm-level assessment shows that CDPs provide positive economic results, representing an adaptive management strategy for ecological transition, without compromising economic sustainability. Particularly, the main findings show that (1) the impact of diversification depends more on crop type than on the selected CDPs, (2) most farms exhibited a low GM with low economic impact, and (3) there is a great likelihood that the CDPs facilitate the buildup of more resilient farming systems. This work was supported by the AgriCambio project (Grant PID2020-114576RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and the European Commission Horizon 2020 project Diverfarming [Grant agreement 728003]. Also, we would like to thank the farmers involved in the case studies for their willingness, availability and their time spent to participate in the project and sharing their crop diversification views and food system perspectives. Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. Zabala, J.; Martínez-García, V.; Martínez-Paz, J.; López-Becerra, E.; Nasso, N.; Díaz-Pereira, E.; Sánchez-Navarro, V... (2023). Crop diversification practices in Europe: an economic cross-case study comparison. Sustainability Science. 18(6):2691-2706. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-023-01413-1