A research agenda for scaling up agroecology in European countries.

A profound transformation of agricultural production methods has become unavoidable due to the increase in the world's population, and environmental and climatic challenges. Agroecology is now recognized as a challenging model for agricultural systems, promoting their diversification and adaptation to environmental and socio-economic contexts, with consequences for the entire agri-food system and the development of rural and urban areas. Through a prospective exercise performed at a large interdisciplinary institute, INRAE, a research agenda for agroecology was built that filled a gap through its ambition and interdisciplinarity. It concerned six topics. For genetics, there is a need to study genetic aspects of complex systems (e.g., mixtures of genotypes) and to develop breeding methods for them. For landscapes, challenges lie in effects of heterogeneity at multiple scales, in multifunctionality and in the design of agroecological landscapes. Agricultural equipment and digital technologies show high potential for monitoring dynamics of agroecosystems. For modeling, challenges include approaches to complexity, consideration of spatial and temporal dimensions and representation of the cascade from cropping practices to ecosystem services. The agroecological transition of farms calls for modeling and observational approaches as well as for creating new design methods. Integration of agroecology into food systems raises the issues of product specificity, consumer behavior and organization of markets, standards and public policies. In addition, transversal priorities were identified: (i) generating sets of biological data, through research and participatory mechanisms, that are appropriate for designing agroecological systems and (ii) collecting and using coherent sets of data to enable assessment of vulnerability, resilience and risk in order to evaluate the performance of agroecological systems and to contribute to scaling up. The main lessons learned from this collective exercise can be useful for the entire scientific community engaged in research into agroecology.

Professional transitions towards sustainable farming systems: The development of farmers' professional worlds.

BACKGROUND: While farming in France and generally in Europe is continuing to intensify, at the expense of its environmental sustainability, promising alternatives are emerging. OBJECTIVE: The processes whereby farmers change and transform their own work, to shift from an intensive mode of production to a self-sufficient and autonomous one, need to be formalized if we are to further our understanding of why and how these forms of sustainable farming activity emerge. METHODS: We use the development of professional worlds theory, a systemic representation of workers' activity, whereby their experience is formalized. This can be explained as the praxis1, conceptual and axiological underpinnings form a system with the object of the action. The development of a professional world is analyzed according to the evolution of its components and the search for pragmatic coherence within it. We analyzed professional transitions towards self-sufficient and autonomous mixed farming through a case study. RESULTS: Our findings showed that the transition is initiated by the discovery of the unthinkable, awareness of a discrepancy between what the farmers think and what they do, the appearance of problems, and the response to external constraints. Professional transition is a non-teleological and non-incremental process; it corresponds to a comparison with reality, and a resolution of difficulties. This process is stimulated by the use of artifacts instrumented by the farmers. CONCLUSION: New perspectives are opened up by this formalization of transitions, in terms of (i) support towards sustainable farming and (ii) the design of sustainable farming systems.

Relationships between work organisation and size of dairy farms: a case study based in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, livestock farming policy is designed to develop milk production to increase the country's dairy self-sufficiency. However, workload is one of the main constraints limiting the potential for increasing production and herd sizes on family-run farms. The aim of this paper was to explore the relationships connecting work organisation forms and durations to herd sizes in order to understand the impacts of rationalising work by increasing herd numbers. A work organisation survey was carried on 19 dairy farmers in two regions of northern Vietnam. Statistical analysis was run to identify relationships between herd size, work organisation forms and work durations. A cluster analysis was used to establish a typology. The results show that the volume of routine work is higher in large herds but is also more efficient. Farmers running large herds lighten their family workload by mechanising routine tasks and by employing permanent contract workers. The paper concludes on a set of guidance strategies to help dairy farms develop their activity, such as hiring farm labour and mechanising farm tasks.