Designing Agroecological Transitions; a Review Michel Duru, Olivier Therond, Mehand Fares
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Designing agroecological transitions; A review Michel Duru, Olivier Therond, Mehand Fares To cite this version: Michel Duru, Olivier Therond, Mehand Fares. Designing agroecological transitions; A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, Springer Verlag/EDP Sciences/INRA, 2015, 35 (4), pp.0. 10.1007/s13593-015-0318-x. hal-01340332 HAL Id: hal-01340332 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01340332 Submitted on 30 Jun 2016 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution| 4.0 International License Agron. Sustain. Dev. (2015) 35:1237–1257 DOI 10.1007/s13593-015-0318-x REVIEW ARTICLE Designing agroecological transitions; A review Michel Duru1,2 & Olivier Therond1,2 & M’hand Fares1,2 Accepted: 28 May 2015 /Published online: 1 July 2015 # INRA and Springer-Verlag France 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Concerns about the negative impacts of agriculture, (2) the pathway of the transition and (3) the re- productivist agriculture have led to the emergence of two quired adaptive governance structures and management strat- forms of ecological modernisation of agriculture. The first, egies. We conclude by analysing key challenges of designing efficiency-substitution agriculture, aims to improve input use such a complex transition, developing multi-actor and multi- efficiency and to minimise environmental impacts of modern domain approaches based on a combination of scientific and farming systems. It is currently the dominant modernisation experiential knowledge and on building suitable boundary pathway. The second, biodiversity-based agriculture, aims to objects (computer-based and conceptual models, indicators, develop ecosystem services provided by biological diversity. etc.) to assess innovative systems designed by stakeholders. It currently exists only as a niche. Here we review challenges of implementing biodiversity-based agriculture: managing, at Keywords Adaptive management . Agroecology . the local level, a consistent transition within and among farm- Ecosystem services . Farming system . Social-ecological ing systems, supply chains and natural resource management. system . Social learning . Socio-technical system . We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of existing concep- Transdisciplinarity tual frameworks developed to analyse farming, social- ecological and socio-technical systems. Then we present an integrative framework tailored for structuring analysis of ag- Contents riculture from the perspective of developing a territorial 1. Introduction biodiversity-based agriculture. In addition, we propose a par- 2. Biodiversity-based agriculture: foundations and challenges ticipatory methodology to design this agroecological transi- 2.1. Foundations of biodiversity-based agriculture tion at the local level. This design methodology was devel- 2.2. Challenges of the transition to biodiversity-based ag- oped to support a multi-stakeholder arena in analysing the riculture and its design current situation, identifying future exogenous changes and 3. An integrative conceptual framework for analysing agricul- designing (1) targeted territorial biodiversity-based tural systems at the local level 3.1. Strengths and weaknesses of three existing conceptual frameworks M Duru and O Therond are two first co-authors 3.2.1. Farming systems and associated innovation systems * Michel Duru 3.2.2. Social-ecological systems [email protected] 3.2.3. Socio-technical systems * Olivier Therond 3.2. An integrative analytical framework of the local [email protected] agriculture 3.3. A local polycentric system of actors for promoting 1 INRA, UMR 1248 AGIR, 31326 Castanet Tolosan, France biodiversity-based agriculture 2 INPT, UMR 1248 AGIR, Université Toulouse, 4. A methodological framework for designing the agroecolog- 31029 Toulouse, France ical transition of agriculture 1238 M. Duru et al. 4.1. The strong ecological modernisation of agriculture: a et al. 2011) or genetically modified organisms (Godfray et al. co-innovation process 2010). Its main objectives are to reduce negative environmen- 4.2. A participatory methodology for designing the agro- tal impacts and raise production limits of production-oriented ecological transition of agriculture agriculture. Due to the levers of action it is based on, we call it 4.3. A five-step methodology “efficiency/substitution-based agriculture”, while others call it 5. Methodological issues and challenges “ecological intensification” (e.g. Hochman et al. 2011). 5.1. An iterative multi-level, multi-domain, and multi-actor The second form aims to enhance ecosystem services pro- approach vided by biodiversity (Le Roux et al. 2008; Zhang et al. 2007). 5.2. Developmentofusefulscientificartefacts These ecosystem services depend on the degree of 5.3. Governance structures to support social learning (agro)biodiversity at field, farm and landscape levels (Kremen 6. Conclusion et al. 2012). Still focusing on the main lever of action, we called it biodiversity-based agriculture, while other authors call it “ecologically intensive agriculture” (Kremen et al. 1 Introduction 2012)or“eco-functional intensification” (Levidow et al. 2012a, b). Extreme forms of these two forms of agriculture In developed countries, the production-oriented or (Table 1, top) must be considered as two ends of a continuum. productivist model of agriculture developed greatly after Importantly, in biodiversity-based agriculture, practices in- World War II. It is based on the use of “off-the-shelf” technol- creasing resource use efficiency and recycling are also imple- ogies (e.g. synthetic inputs, genetics) to try to overcome envi- mented, if necessary. ronmental heterogeneity and, more particularly, effects of lim- Some authors address production-oriented agriculture is- iting and reducing production factors (van Ittersum and sues without distinguishing between the two forms of ecolog- Rabbinge 1997; Caron et al. 2014). This model contributed ical modernisation (Godfray et al. 2010; Wezel et al. 2013). In to a specialisation of territories based on their suitability for line with Horlings and Marsden (2011), we argue that this is specific land uses (Foley et al. 2005). It also led to problematic for at least two main reasons. First, biodiversity- standardisation of production methods and, as a consequence, based agriculture introduces a paradigm shift in the vision of a decrease in the place-based cognitive resources necessary to agricultural innovations and systems, especially in their objec- implement them. The desire to increase the health safety of tives and expected performances of agriculture (Caron et al. agricultural production and its standardisation, even normal- 2014) and in how to apprehend and manage interactions be- isation, prolonged and strengthened this process (Horlings and tween the environment and production (Levidow et al. 2012a, Marsden 2011;Lamine2011). Since the 1980s, realisation has b). Efficiency/substitution-based agriculture usually consists emerged about the negative effects of this production model of incrementally modifying practices in specialised systems on biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and climate change, as to comply with environmental regulations, e.g. EU directives well as on product quality, human health and the increasing (Duru and Therond 2014). In contrast, biodiversity-based ag- scarcity of fossil resources, water and natural phosphate de- riculture seeks to develop diversified cropping and farming posits (MAE 2005, IAASTD 2009). At the same time, devel- systems (Fig. 1a, b) and landscapes (Fig. 1c) to develop eco- opment of the concepts of sustainability, multi-functionality system services and, in turn, drastically reduce the use of and ecosystem services challenged the monolithic logic of this anthropogenic inputs (Duru et al. 2015). Second, model (Huang et al. 2015). Evaluation of environmental im- biodiversity-based agriculture requires “adopt[ing] a more pacts of agriculture, social awareness of these issues linked to creative eco-economy paradigm which replaces, and indeed media coverage, redefinition of the objectives of agriculture in relocates, agriculture and its policies into the heart of regional agricultural policies and, more recently, the worsening of the and local systems of ecological, economic and community food security issue have promoted new ways to address lim- development” (Marsden 2012). Accordingly, developing this itations of this model of agriculture and of the “green revolu- type of agriculture requires implementing multi-level and tion” (Godfray et al. 2010). multi-domain approaches at the local level (Caron et al. Horlings and Marsden (2011) distinguish two forms of 2014; Horlings and Marsden 2011;Lin2011;Marsden ecological modernisation of agriculture that address these lim- 2012;Stassartetal.2012). itations. The first, in continuity with production-oriented ag- In recent decades, research has generated knowledge about riculture, is based on increasing resource