Ecosystem services provide for half of French agricultural production in annual cropping systems

Agriculture both provides and benefits from ecosystem services. Few studies have estimated the relative contribution of ecosystem services to the production of agricultural goods. In the French National Ecosystem Assessment, we used the Simulateur mulTIdisciplinaire pour les Cultures Standard (STICS) model to simulate a large set of representative French cropping systems (n = 30 580) to estimate the percentage of production provided for by ecosystem services inputs vs. human inputs. We considered the ecosystem services of mineral nitrogen supplied by the soil and soil water storage and return to crops. At the rotation scale, nearly 50% of production was provided for by the nitrogen- and water-related ecosystem services inputs, with 95% of the values ranging from 29 to 71%. The results were influenced by the spatial distribution of crops and their temporal frequency in the crop rotations. Production situations with low mean levels of ecosystem services did not always have a low percentage of production provided for by ecosystem services, which depended on the difference between the levels of ecosystem services and crop requirements in the rotation in a given soil and climate. For example, sunflower requires less nitrogen and water than grain maize to achieve its potential yield, although both are grown in dry areas with less favorable soils. Consequently, the ecosystem services provided for a greater percentage of sunflower production. The results also indicated the potential to reduce human inputs while increasing the ability of ecosystems to supply nitrogen by improving natural capital, such as soil organic matter content.