CIHEAM Montpellier organized an online training session on bioeconomic modeling on 15 September 2025. The session brought together a diverse group of academic and institutional participants. Representatives included CIHEAM Montpellier (Zaynab Khannafer, Aybike Bayraktar, Hatem Belhouchette), CIHEAM Bari (Chiara Ciannamea, Alessandra Scardigno), University of Cagliari – UNICA (Antonio Coppola, Antonio Sessini, Francesca Lobina, Sebastiano Curreli), University of Basilicata – UNIBAS (Faiza Souid, Hassan Shawkat), University of Barcelona – UB / MAiMa Group (José Luque Marin, Manuela Barbieri, Helena Escalona Orellana), Regione Sardegna (Mario Lorrai, Pasquale Lasio), and Mohammed V University of Rabat (Souad El Hajjaji, Loubna El Joumri, Loubna Bouhachlaf, Oujidane Elouali, Abdelilah Elhamil).
The session opened with a welcome and introduction, including a brief presentation of the NPP-SOL project scope, the training objectives, and a roundtable of self-introductions to share participants’ expectations.
The CIHEAM Montpellier team presented the fundamental principles of bioeconomic modeling and its agricultural applications. This approach integrates biological and economic dimensions to create a virtual laboratory, enabling participants to evaluate various agricultural management scenarios, including crop diversification, irrigation optimization, input reduction, and the implementation of public policies.
A practical simulation was conducted using a hypothetical 11-hectare farm with five main crops across two soil types. The model accounted for agronomic and economic constraints, such as land availability, seasonal labor, water requirements, and market prices. The results demonstrated optimal crop allocation by season, illustrating the model’s ability to balance economic performance with realistic production constraints.Participants also explored two alternative agricultural policy scenarios aimed at reducing environmental impacts while maintaining farm economic viability. The simulations focused on a typical farm with two distinct growing periods (winter P1 and summer P2), comparing the effects of nitrogen and water limitations against a reference scenario.
The training highlighted how modeling provides a safe environment to test strategies before real-life investments or changes are made, while preparing participants to design and propose their own scenarios. The session concluded with an open discussion, where participants suggested additional scenarios for future testing and shared perspectives on public policy, sustainable input management, and crop diversification.
As a follow-up, a second training session may be organized at a later date, during which simulations will be carried out using data collected within the scope of the NPP-SOL project.
This training session represents a key milestone for the NPP-SOL community and paves the way for future sessions and workshops that will further develop the use of bioeconomic modeling as a strategic tool for preventing diffuse agricultural pollution.
