A “silent” agroecology: the significance of unrecognized sociotechnical changes made by French farmers

Abstract

Agroecology has been a focus of intense debate in France since 2012, when the idea was explicitly adopted as a national policy objective by the Ministry of Agriculture. This article intervenes in this debate by documenting and describing an under-recognized, "silent" agroecology practiced by conventional farmers contending with a variety of threatseconomic, technical, and climatic-to their farming systems. Inspired by the sociology of development, the research summarized here shows how these farmers have relied on peerto-peer cooperation, and specifically on formal equipment-sharing arrangements, to develop a range of practices allowing for the ecological improvement of their farming systems. These farmers make few claims with regard to the environmental benefits of their innovations, however: instead, they emphasize their desire for improved farm autonomy. Out of respect for the social and professional dynamics within which they operate, moreover, these farmers tend to avoid ecological terms and topics in their peer-to-peer conversations. This "silence" is reinforced by the statistical tools used to report on French agriculture, which make little note of such farmers' activities, effectively excluding these practices from assessments of the ecologization of French agriculture. Finally, given the challenges these farmers face in locating necessary resources elsewhere in the agrifood sector (suppliers, research and development, markets), the ecological benefits of these new practices are not always fully realized. Nevertheless, the scale and significance of this silent agroecology-the conditions for which are also present in other Western countries-suggest an urgent need to reorient public policy frameworks to better support the agroecological transition.

How could social media support farmers concerned with sustainability issues?

“…Dessein and Nevens 2007;Coquil, Dedieu, and Beguin 2017;Chizallet, Prost, and Barcellini 2020;Perrin et al 2020;Bouttes, Darnhofer, and Martin 2019), and these personal, subjective elements are often not emphasized or are even ignored and not made visible. For instance, the agricultural press hardly reports on them (Chupin and Mayance 2021) and the farmers themselves as well as their advisors are not necessarily at ease (or used to) sharing such information (Lucas 2021, Bezner Kerr et al 2022. Our study shows the extent to which farmers in transition are willing to interact on each of these two dimensions, sometimes both at the same time, depending on their profile.…”

Conditions for a Convergence between Digital Platforms and Sustainability in Agriculture

“…As the economic models in agriculture are volatile and the level of complexity and agronomy required to implement new processes is increasing, this leads farmers to strive for economic viability, environmental efficiency, and social stability. To address these concerns, a shift toward more sustainable models is required [5,36,[45][46][47]. This transition entails technical, cognitive, socio-economic, organizational, and personal challenges [15].…”

How Can Collective Action Support the Agroecological Transition in Geographical Indication Vineyards? Insights from the Loire Valley Wine Area

“…Transition pathways and strategies are diverse according to the transition actors' underlying perceptions of agroecology [11]. Some strategies are apparent, such as certification for organic agriculture [12], whereas others are less noticeable [13] and vary from reducing inputs to redesigning agroecosystems. As a result, the alternatives to the conventional farming system are numerous, ranging from more substitutive to more transformative agroecological models [14,15].…”