Sociotechnical controversies as warning signs for niche governance

Belmin, Raphaël; Meynard, Jean-Marc; Julhia, Laurent; Casabianca, François

doi:10.1007/s13593-018-0521-7

Cited by 17 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…In this context, one can frame the structures, institutions and values that prevail among the donor community as a regime that acts as a selection environment for less powerful organizations, and evolves in parallel with dominant regimes of conventional agricultural development. While some MLP studies question a rigid view of niche/ regime dichotomy in favor of hybrid processes (Darnhofer 2015;Ingram 2015;Belmin et al 2018), we argue that the MLP could evolve to look at social structures and patterns of power relationships that cross niche-regime boundaries or span across multiple niches and regimes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

The agroecological transition in Senegal: transnational links and uneven empowerment

2021

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Senegal is among the few African countries that counts with an important agroecological movement. This movement is strongly backed up by a network of transnational partnerships and has recently matured into an advocacy coalition that promotes an agroecological transition at national scale. In this article, we investigate the role of transnational links on the empowerment potential of agroecology. Combining the multi-level perspective of socio-technical transitions and Bourdieu’s theory of practices, we conceptualize the agroecological network as a niche shaped by the circulation of different types of capital. Using social network analysis, we investigate the existing flows of resources and knowledge, as well as membership and advocacy links to critically address within-niche empowerment processes. We show that transnational ties play a key role in building the niche protective space, showing a financial dependency of the agroecological niche on NGOs and international cooperation programmes based in Europe and North America. This configuration tends to favor the empowerment of NGOs instead of farmer unions, which only play a peripheral role in the network. However, the multiple innovations focus of agroecology may open up prospects for more gradual but potentially radical change. Based on our findings, we suggest to include more explicitly core-periphery dynamics in transition studies involving North–South relations, including circulation of capital, ideas and norms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

The agroecological transition in Senegal: transnational links and uneven empowerment

2021

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“…4c). As is often the case in agriculture, they were close to dominant regime actors, then interacting strongly with the dominant regime (Belmin et al 2018). Following Geels and Schot (2007), this could be seen as an ongoing sociotechnical transition process.…”

Section: Sociotechnical Landscape Levelmentioning

confidence: 90%

Analyzing barriers and levers for practice change: a new framework applied to vegetables’ soil pest management

Boulestreau

Casagrande

Navarrete

2021

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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Western agricultural practices for crop protection are still heavily dependent on pesticides, even though they cause major human health and environmental hazards. In France, public incentives for pesticide reduction have failed to achieve their goal, and agroecological practices are still seldom implemented. In this study, we hypothesized that a systemic analysis of the determinants of current farming practices could serve to characterize (i) the impediments to change in farming practices; (ii) the resources supporting the change; (iii) the underpinning sociotechnical processes; (iv) the stakeholders' involvement; and (v) levers to facilitate agroecological transition. We therefore designed the first analytical framework that supports a systemic, multi-level (field, farm, territorial, and supra-territorial), multi-actor (including private actors and policymakers), and transformation-oriented analysis of the determinants of farming practices. We applied this analytical framework to the management of root-knot nematodes in sheltered vegetable systems in south-eastern France, jointly analyzing conventional and organic systems. We conducted this comprehensive analysis based on complementary data collection methods: interviews with stakeholders, analysis of written material, participant observation, and participatory workshops. We show that strongly interconnected determinants of farming practices fostered drastic soil disinfection and locked out agroecological soil health technology (e.g., product quality and economic constraints from marketing firms and from regulations; lack of knowledge; unavailability of agroecological inputs). However, this sociotechnical lock-in was being undermined by societal pressures and increasing actions of the stakeholders in favor of the agroecology paradigm. On the other hand, the conventionalization process of the organic regime was simultaneously threatening the further development of agroecological practices. Finally, this analysis revealed levers that could be used to support innovation design and enable changes in farming practices toward agroecology (e.g., facilitate access to agroecological inputs, develop multi-stakeholder platforms). The framework, successfully applied to the Provençal vegetable sector, could be used in other production and territorial contexts.

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“…Considering that favorable conditions for fruit enlargement lead to an earlier acidity drop (Table 2), our study highlights an antagonism between the production of large fruit and the internal quality of fruit or harvesting management. In a context where large fruit production is driven by the market (Belmin et al, 2018b), producers are encouraged to favor the growth of fruit at the expense of acidity. Thus, they incur risks at the time of harvesting: short times for picking (narrow harvestability window) and low acidity in fruit.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acidity Drop and Coloration in Clementine: Implications for Fruit Quality and Harvesting Practices

Julhia

Belmin²,

Pailly

et al. 2019

Front. Plant Sci.

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The commercial quality of fruit is the result of a combination of internal (acidity, sugars, juice, etc.) and external characteristics (shape, size, color, visual defects, etc.). On citrus, the internal maturity of fruit is often reached prior and independently to their external maturity, inducing the use of degreening practices to artificially color fruit. However, for some sectors where degreening is not authorized, such as organic farming or up-market, it is important to understand the co-occurrence between fruit coloration and internal ripening, and its impact on fruit quality and harvesting management. Our study was based on a monitoring of the color and acidity of Protected Geographical Indication “Clémentine de Corse” orchards of producers in 2013 and 2014. Our results show that: (i) the dynamics of acidity drop during maturation are similar from one plot to another but staggered in time; (ii) fruit coloring occurs at different times during acidity drop; (iii) the synchronization between the coloring process and acidity drop determines both the quality of harvested fruit and the period during which orchards are harvestable, which we called the “harvestability window.” This study sheds new light on the quality of citrus harvested without fruit degreening and leads to propose actions to anticipate internal maturity evolution according to the coloring and spreading of the harvest period. The fruit acidity model obtained in this study will be extended to a practical application tool to predict fruit acidity and quality for a better-controlled harvest management.

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Sociotechnical controversies as warning signs for niche governance

Cited by 17 publications

References 27 publications

The agroecological transition in Senegal: transnational links and uneven empowerment

The agroecological transition in Senegal: transnational links and uneven empowerment

Analyzing barriers and levers for practice change: a new framework applied to vegetables’ soil pest management

Acidity Drop and Coloration in Clementine: Implications for Fruit Quality and Harvesting Practices

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