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The agro-ecological transition confronts the agricultural world, and agronomists in particular, with the need for new, more systemic knowledge on a variety of objects and scales to go towards diversified cropping system (Ditzler 2022). The means that have been implemented for majority crops such as wheat or corn in intensive production systems cannot be deployed for such diversified systems and are not enough to fully equip the transition of agri-food systems (Lacoste et al. 2021). It is therefore necessary to rethink the very means of producing this knowledge. Regarding experimentation as a major mean for knowledge production in agricultural sciences, the most common practices remain those led by an analytical approach, within the researchers’ controlled environment of experimental stations. Other types of experiment are being developed or reconsidered, such as long-term system experiments (eg Longis et al. 2024) or experiments led by R&D with farmers (Salembier et al. 2023), or even experiments carried out by farmers themselves (Catalogna et al. 2022), these types being interestingly characterized by their collective nature. We therefore assume that innovation towards agro-ecological practices is based on more or less complex combinations of these different forms of experimentation and implies more collective and multi-actor dimension. It is through this prism that we have decided to approach experimentation.
In this communication, we analyzed these diverse processes of experimentation in relation with the way they renew knowledge production. We conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from French institutions, including researchers, advisors from chambers of agriculture or cooperatives, and leaders of development groups. These stakeholders were selected based on their involvement in experimental projects with inter- or intra-organizational partnerships, and who had a role within the experiment that gave them a comprehensive view of it. These interviews were completed by documentary analysis (mainly meeting reports or experiments’ valorizations) and participation in events such as trial visits.
The inductive and comparative analysis of these stories of experimentation processes enables us to characterize their diversity according to several axes of interpretation. We in fact identify the diverse intertwining of the “How” (experimental set-ups, in their biophysical and organizational dimensions) and the “Why” (objectives assigned to the implementation of experimentation). This allows us to construct ideal-types (Weber, 1949) of collective experimentations that differently contribute to fuel transitions towards agroecology. This analysis seems to us to be a necessary step towards a better understanding of collective agronomic experiments in the context of diversification of agricultural systems, in order to provide better tools for these complex, multi-stakeholder processes.
References :
Catalogna, Maxime, Muriel Dunilac Dubois, et Mireille Navarrete. 2022. « Multi-Annual Experimental Itinerary: An Analytical Framework to Better Understand How Farmers Experiment Agroecological Practices ». Agronomy for Sustainable Development 42 (2): 20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-022-00758-8.
Ditzler, Lenora Louise Evens. 2022. « Towards Diversified Industrial Cropping Systems? » Phd, Wageningen: Wageningen University. https://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/wurpubs/603203.
Lacoste, Myrtille, Simon Cook, Matthew McNee, Danielle Gale, Julie Ingram, Véronique Bellon-Maurel, Tom MacMillan, et al. 2021. « On-Farm Experimentation to Transform Global Agriculture ». Nature Food 3 (1): 11‑18. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00424-4.
Longis, Sandrine, Stéphane Cadoux, Anne-Laure Toupet de Cordoue, Paul Tauvel, Marie Estienne, Pierre Onzon, Françoise Lescourret, Clotilde Rouillon, et Jean-Noël Aubertot. 2024. « Performance of Innovative Cropping Systems Diversified with Oilseeds and Protein Crops: Identification and Resolution of Methodological Issues, Using the Syppre Experimental Network as a Case Study ». OCL 31: 2. https://doi.org/10.1051/ocl/2023022.
Salembier, Chloé, Ane Kirstine Aare, Laurent Bedoussac, Iman Raj Chongtham, Abco de Buck, Nawa Raj Dhamala, Christos Dordas, et al. 2023. « Exploring the Inner Workings of Design-Support Experiments: Lessons from 11 Multi-Actor Experimental Networks for Intercrop Design ». European Journal of Agronomy 144 (mars): 126729. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2022.126729.
Weber, Max. 1949. Methodology of Social Sciences. The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315124445.
| Keywords | On farm experimentation; diversification; agroecology; agronomic innovation; multi-actor |
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