Designing a research agenda for coupled innovation towards sustainable agrifood systems

Brun, Juliette; Jeuffroy, Marie‐Hélène; Pénicaud, Caroline; Cerf, Marianne; Meynard, Jean-Marc

doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2021.103143

Cited by 20 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…4.1. Providing knowledge on existing coupled innovations to support innovation design and niche management Exploring alternatives to the dominant regime through the design of coupled innovation is a new research avenue (Brun et al, 2021;Meynard et al, 2017;Salembier et al, 2020). We believe that 'tracking down coupled innovations' can play a key role in this process, by supporting the design of the innovations required to achieve the sustainable transition of agrifood systems (Meynard et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking down coupled innovations supporting agroecological vegetable crop protection to foster sustainability transition of agrifood systems

Boulestreau

Peyras

Casagrande

et al. 2022

Agricultural Systems

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1. CONTEXT: High pesticide use causes environmental and human health hazards. Yet, the change to alternative crop protection practices faces a web of interacting barriers that results in a sociotechnical lock-in. Designing "coupled innovation" has been proposed by agricultural scientists to overcome the barriers that prevent change in practices. Coupled innovations consist of developing jointly innovations both at the farm and the agrifood system level to overcome the lock-in. OBJECTIVE:In this study, we aim at characterizing how existing coupled innovations foster the implementation of agroecological crop protection in French vegetable systems. 3. METHODS: 'Tracking down coupled innovation' method consisted of six steps: (i) identification of the existing coupled innovations in vegetable systems across France; (ii) interview of their stakeholders; (iii) identification, based on the interviews and an analytical framework, of the sociotechnical levers involved in the coupled innovations and the functions the levers perform to foster agroecological crop protection; (iv) characterization of the conditions for the coupled innovation implementation based on 20 categorical variables;(v) typology of the innovations based on the lever functions they performed, using a multiple correspondence analysis followed by hierarchical cluster analysis on principal components;(vi) comprehensive analysis of one typical innovation per cluster, to understand in-depth how it was implemented. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS:We identified 40 coupled innovations, 17 sociotechnical lever functions and 5 consistent clusters of coupled innovations each implementing a specific combination of lever functions. The five clusters consist of: (1) co-developing and diffusing new inputs and related knowledge through specific knowledge infrastructure, (2) facilitating farmers' peer-exchange of knowledge, (3) (re)structuring the food value chain to support the implementation of agroecological crop protection, (4) pooling material and cognitive resources and (5) renting or exchanging fields to support crop diversification. Key conditions for innovation success were the support of intermediaries, a shared vision and trust between stakeholders, their active involvement, and a limited physical distance between them. The comprehensive analysis of the typical innovations illustrated, for each cluster, the complex relation between the sociotechnical levers, the functions they perform, the network involved, the ACP practices implemented and the conditions for successful implementation. 5. SIGNIFICANCE: Tracking down coupled innovation produced knowledge that can support the coupled innovation design in other contexts, hence the sustainability transition of the agrifood systems. It can complement the study of innovative farmers' practices with capitalizing knowledge on the means to overcome barriers to the implementation of these practices.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking down coupled innovations supporting agroecological vegetable crop protection to foster sustainability transition of agrifood systems

Boulestreau

Peyras

Casagrande

et al. 2022

Agricultural Systems

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“…Research toward zero-pesticide use will not be achieved without close collaboration among disciplines. Disruptive and innovative research axes are more likely to emerge within interdisciplinary work because different knowledge bases should be combined, shared, and renewed (Le Masson et al 2016;Vourc'h et al 2018;Brun et al 2021). In particular, it is essential to involve social sciences to study socio-economic obstacles that could hinder implementation of innovations, as well as social organizations that could enhance development of disruptive innovations (Villemaine et al 2021).…”

Section: Research Toward Pesticide-free Agriculture: a Disruptive Paradigm Today To Build Solutions For Tomorrowmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To unlock dominant systems, innovations in the field should be coordinated with innovations at other steps of the value chain, especially downstream with processing innovations. Stimulating such coupled innovation processes, which aims to connect innovation processes in agriculture and food sectors to support healthy and sustainable agri-food systems, calls for specific research (Meynard et al 2017;Brun et al 2021). To date, most innovation and design in these sectors have been separated due to specialization of skills, knowledge, and methods.…”

Section: Redesigning Cropping Systems To Enhance Prophylaxismentioning

confidence: 99%

Pesticide-free agriculture as a new paradigm for research

Jacquet

Jeuffroy

Jouan

et al. 2022

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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178

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Reducing pesticide use has become a goal shared by several European countries and a major issue in public policies due to the negative impacts of pesticides on the environment and on human health. However, since most of the agri-food sector relies on pesticides in these countries, substantially reducing pesticide use is a complex issue. To overcome this situation, we argue that agricultural research has a major role to play and must adopt a pesticide-free paradigm to expect a deep impact on pesticide use. In this article, we explain why this new paradigm is needed and outline research fronts that it will help address. These research fronts are related to five strategies: (1) redesigning cropping systems to enhance prophylaxis, (2) diversifying biocontrol strategies and associated business models, (3) broadening the scope of plant breeding to include functional biodiversity and evolutionary ecology concepts, (4) setting new goals for agricultural machinery and digital technologies, and (5) supporting development of public policies and private initiatives for the transition toward pesticide-free agri-food systems. The corresponding research activities must be managed conjointly to develop systemic and coupled innovations, which are essential for reducing pesticide use significantly. We therefore provide examples of cross-cutting objectives that combine these fronts while also highlighting the need for interdisciplinary research projects. By doing so, we provide an overall orientation for research to achieve sustainable agriculture.

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“…In recent years, several terms such as co-innovation (Bitzer and Bijman, 2015), innovative enablers and barriers to achieving such a mindset have been studied (Petridis et al, 2020). For a higher chance of knowledge management, businesses should implement a concise and continuous knowledge flow between internal departments and collaborate with other companies if they are willing to complete this stage (Brun et al, 2021). Due to sanctions, Iran has been unable to implement top-rated infrastructures such as SAP in managing supply chains or marketing tools such as MOZ or Hootsuite in recent years (Heshmati and Dibaji, 2019).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, 2020). For a higher chance of knowledge management, businesses should implement a concise and continuous knowledge flow between internal departments and collaborate with other companies if they are willing to complete this stage (Brun et al. , 2021).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

A process-based guide for international entrepreneurs while investing in the agrifood sector of an emerging economy: a multi-layer decision-making approach

Mahdiraji

Beheshti

Hajiagha

et al. 2021

BFJ

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PurposeDue to the political, economic and infrastructure barriers and risks that international entrepreneurs (IEs) face when researching an emerging economy's agrifood sector, this research aims to identify the major barriers, analyse their relationships, quantify their importance, classify and rank them. Thus, the IEs will gain a better understanding and vision of their decision-making processes in this era.Design/methodology/approachTo do this, the authors first created a list of barriers to entry for IEs into Iran's rising economy's agrifood industry. Following that, a multi-layer decision-making approach was developed and implemented to accomplish the research objectives. The first stage utilized a hybrid of interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) to depict the level-based conceptual model and classification of the IEs’ obstacles to entry into the agrifood sector. Following that, a hybrid decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL), and analytic network process (ANP) called DANP was utilized to present a causal relationship between the barriers, identify their causes and effects, and also quantify the relevance of each barrier.FindingsAfter employing the multi-layer decision-making approach, the results demonstrated that fundamental limitations, including infrastructure and technology limitations, are the most critical barriers alongside policy factors encompassing governmental support and access to global or regional economy/market. According to the results, innovation and economic sustainability of the agrifood supply chain also matter. All of these critical barriers are intertwined and should be planned and solved simultaneously. Furthermore, based on DANP results, the sustainability pillars (economy, environment, society), besides the low efficiency of the agrifood sector in Iran, should be investigated further for future policy makings.Originality/valueA hybrid multi-layer decision-making approach has been used for analysing the barriers of investment in the agrifood sector of the emerging economy of Iran for the international entrepreneurs. Moreover, the authors provide implications and insights for IEs and officials for decision-making in the future.

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Designing a research agenda for coupled innovation towards sustainable agrifood systems

Cited by 20 publications

References 57 publications

Tracking down coupled innovations supporting agroecological vegetable crop protection to foster sustainability transition of agrifood systems

Tracking down coupled innovations supporting agroecological vegetable crop protection to foster sustainability transition of agrifood systems

Pesticide-free agriculture as a new paradigm for research

A process-based guide for international entrepreneurs while investing in the agrifood sector of an emerging economy: a multi-layer decision-making approach

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