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Marie Lassalas will defend her PhD in front of the following jury:

• Philippe Bontems (INRAE), referee
• Douadia Bougherara (INRAE), referee
• Aurélie Bonein (Université de Rennes), examinator
• Manuela Coromaldi (Università degli Studi Niccolò Cusano), examinator
• Bruno Larue (Université Laval), examinator
• Damien Rousselière (Institut Agro Rennes-Angers), examinator
• Sabine Duvaleix (INRAE), supervisor

Résumé

This PhD thesis aims to investigate whether environmental standards may incentivize farmers’ adoption of environmental practices. First, it explores the effects of adopting environmental standards on the agronomic and economic performances of farms. Second, as voluntary adoption of environmental practices can be influenced by factors beyond purely economic interests, I examine the attributes of farming contracts that can encourage the adoption of environmental standards. Last, as in recent years, public policies have increasingly included standards to achieve their objectives, I analyze the impact of integrating environmental standards into public policies on farmers' practices. We show that organic farms operate under a lower production frontier than conventional farms but they are efficient regarding their own production frontier. Besides, the adoption of a standard prohibiting the use of the most toxic pesticides has a negative effect on the technical performance of affected wheat plots. The price premium of the more stringent environmental standard merely compensates for the negative effect of the standard’s adoption on quality. This thesis illustrates that supply chain and public policy initiatives can be complementary to incentivize the adoption of environmental practices by farmers. Farmers are highly responsive to market-based economic incentives and to options for compensation in the case of yield loss. However, the effectiveness of both approaches relies on a trade-off between the level of environmental requirements and the participation rate.