L1D89

(1.2)
L1T76 (48%): farmers (16%)

L1T117 (5%): schemes (15%), scheme (12%), adoption (8%)
titleabstract

Socio-technical lock-in hinders crop diversification in France (2018) 🗎🗎

Crop diversification is considered as a major lever to increase the sustainability of arable farming systems, allowing reduced inputs (irrigation water, pesticides, fertilizers), increasing the heterogeneity of habitat mosaics, or reducing yield gap associated with too frequent returns of the same species. To free up paths of collective action, this article highlights obstacles to crop diversification, existing at various levels of the value chains. We used a threefold approach: (i) a cross-cutting analysis of impediments to the development of 11 diversifying crops (5 species of grain legumes, alfalfa, flax, hemp, linseed, mustard, sorghum), based on published documents and on 30 interviews of stakeholders in French value chains; (ii) a detailed study (55 semi-structured surveys, including 39 farmers) of three value chains: pea and linseed for animal feed, hemp for insulation and biomaterials; and (iii) a bibliometric analysis of the technical journals and websites (180 articles) to characterize the nature of information diffused to farmers. We highlight that the development of minor crops is hindered by a socio-technical lock-in in favor of the dominant species (wheat, rapeseed, maize, etc.). We show for the first time that this lock-in is characterized by strongly interconnected impediments, occurring at every link of the value chains, such as lack of availability of improved varieties and methods of plant protection, scarcity of quantified references on crop successions, complexity of the knowledge to be acquired by farmers, logistical constraints to harvest collection, and difficulties of coordination within the emerging value chains. On the basis of this lock-in analysis, that could concern other European countries, the article proposes levers aimed at encouraging actors to incorporate a greater diversity of crops into their productive systems: adaptation of standards and labelling, better coordination between stakeholders to fairly share added value within value chains, and combination of genetic, agronomic, technological, and organizational innovations.

Lock-ins and Agency: Towards an Embedded Approach of Individual Pathways in the Walloon Dairy Sector (2019) 🗎🗎

As the 2009 dairy crisis drew attention to the situation of dairy farmers in Europe, the extent of strategical power left to farmers in dairy cooperatives of increasing size is a frequently raised issue. Four dairy cooperatives collect 97% of the milk in the Walloon Region (in the southern part of Belgium). Two of them integrated agro-food multinationals. We decided to analyze the trajectories of Walloon dairy farmers exploring alternatives to the delivery of milk to these mainstream dairy cooperatives. We focused on the territories situated to the east of the Walloon Region, where dairy farming represents 75% of farming revenues. Alternatives consist either of processing milk on farm or in concluding a contract with a cheese processor collecting milk directly from farmers. Our objective was to understand the issues faced in these alternative trajectories and the reason why these alternatives remained marginal. We designed a qualitative case study based on interviews with farmers and local cheese processors. We mobilized evolutionary approaches on the stability and transitions of systems and approaches of change at the farmer level. It appears that the alternative trajectories remain embedded in a broader dairy context. The lock-ins emerging from this context determine the evolution of the farming model towards intensification and the individual identity and capabilities of farmers. We present a model of interconnected and embedded lock-ins, from the organizational frame of the regime to the individual frame. This model illustrates how the agency articulates with structural dynamics. We propose structural measures in the organization of agricultural education and in terms of support to alternative supply chains that will enhance agency in favor of a change.

Cultural Lock-in and Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Case of Dairy/Beef Farmers in Norway (2020) 🗎🗎

Meeting targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture will require the implementation of effective mitigation measures. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently recognised that to succeed we need to understand more about the conditions within which mitigation measures are applied, and for this, they note, we need insights from social science disciplines including sociology. We addressed this knowledge gap by using the concept of path-dependency and lock-in to explore barriers to change in dairy/beef systems in Norway. A qualitative survey of 29 farms found that changing parenting, recreational and spousal role expectations are driving farmers towards intensification (and thus higher emissions) in order to purchase milking robots, which, in turn, provide increased time for the expected role changes. Structural change is thus predominantly directed towards farm continuity which is making it increasingly difficult to meet mitigation targets in the future. The study illustrates how mitigation measures might be made more effective by understanding and addressing the broader cultural/structural environment within which farmers and their families operate.

The abandonment of maize landraces over the last 50 years in Morelos, Mexico: a tracing study using a multi-level perspective (2019) 🗎🗎

Understanding the causes of maize landrace loss in farmers' field is essential to design effective conservation strategies. These strategies are necessary to ensure that genetic resources are available in the future. Previous studies have shown that this loss is caused by multiple factors. In this longitudinal study, we used a collection of 93 maize landrace accessions from Morelos, Mexico, and stored at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) Maize Germplasm Bank, to trace back to the original 66 donor families after 50 years and explore the causes for why they abandoned or conserved their seed lots. We used an actor-centered approach, based on interviews and focus group discussions. We adopt a Multi-Level Perspective framework to examine loss as a process, accommodating multiple causes and the interactions among them. We found that the importance of maize landrace cultivation had diminished over the last 50 years in the study area. By 2017, 13 families had conserved a total of 14 seed lots directly descended from the 1967 collection. Focus group participants identified 60 accessions that could still be found in the surrounding municipalities. Our findings showed that multiple interconnected changes in maize cultivation technologies, as well as in maize markets, other crop markets, agricultural and land policies, cultural preferences, urbanization and climate change, have created an unfavorable environment for the conservation of maize landraces. Many of these processes were location- and landrace-specific, and often led to landrace abandonment during the shift from one farmer generation to the next.

Ecophyto, the French action plan to reduce pesticide use: a failure analyses and reasons for hoping (2017) 🗎🗎

Launched in France in 2008, the national "Ecophyto" plan, aiming "if possible" at a reduction of 50% of the pesticides use within 10 years, is a failure. After the first five years of its implementation, pesticide consumption has increased. Acknowledging this failure, the French government recently announced a new version of the plan (Ecophyto 2) although some aspects of its content remain unknown. For the authors of this paper (agronomists and sociologists), failure was predictable, given the characteristics of Ecophyto 1's implemented actions. They show it by the analysis of two of the flagship initiatives of the plan (monitoring health plant "bulletin", database allowing to assess in real time the risks of pests, and the "DEPHY farms", an experimental network supposed to disseminate good practices, and the study of the indicator measuring pesticide use. But the failure is even more due to the plan's main focus on farmers and advisors practices regardless of the broader effects of the "socio-technical lock-in" including a wide range of actors all interdependent and strongly engaged in pesticides' logic of uses. Ecophyto plan has nevertheless a symbolic effect, which could be determinant at mid-and long-terms: public authorities sent the signal of the upcoming end of pesticide massive use in agriculture.

Pesticide lock-in in small scale Peruvian agriculture (2016) 🗎🗎

Despite decades of research into the negative impacts of synthetic pesticides, farmers in Latin America continue to use pesticides at high levels and at a high cost to social and environmental sustainability. In this paper, we present a case study of pest management strategies in small-scale agriculture, focusing on the unsustainable technological lock-in of synthetic pesticides. Of the 196 smallholder farmers we surveyed in the coastal Mala and Omas Valleys of Perdu 22% of respondents experienced pesticide poisoning themselves or by an immediate family member. Additionally, the two most common pesticide categories reported in use are potent neurotoxins. We hypothesized that the farmers in the valleys were locked into synthetic pesticides due to uncertainty, coordination and learning associated with adopting an alternative strategy. Logistic regressions revealed gender (male), consulting an agro-chemical technician, quantity of cultivated land, and apple as a primary crop to be important predictors of synthetic pesticide use. Our findings suggest that these predictors represent the lock-in of synthetic pesticides through network externalities, learning economies and adaptive expectations. We conclude with opportunities to transition to sustainable pest management strategies at the local level in Latin American communities through interventions countering the lock-in of synthetic pesticides. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Why are grain-legumes rarely present in cropping systems despite their environmental and nutritional benefits? Analyzing lock-in in the French agrifood system (2016) 🗎🗎

Grain-legume plants fix atmospheric nitrogen in the soil and thus do not need nitrogen fertilizers. Therefore, grain legumes can potentially decrease global warming, as nitrogen fertilization is responsible for half of all agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, grain-legumes have many functional and nutritional properties both as feed and food. Despite the fact that the European Union has granted considerable subsidies to promote grain-legume cultivation, their production continues to fall and there has been no satisfactory explanation as to why. This study provides an answer by showing that a situation of technological lock-in has resulted from the co-evolution of crop systems, based on an agrochemical paradigm, public policies, and market dynamics that promote cereals. This process began with the historical choice by European and French public institutions to relegate grain-legumes to feed in direct competition with imported soybeans. Moreover, interrelated factors, such as breeding selection, public subsidies, and food systems, have favored increasing returns to adoption for cereals to the detriment of grain-legumes. Finally, the evolutionary economics approach used here identified several actions that must be implemented together, such as agricultural cost-accounting methods, nitrogen management, institutional innovations, and market outlets to promote grain-legumes and move towards more sustainable agriculture. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Transitional pathways towards input reduction on French field crop farms (2015) 🗎🗎

Reducing the use of pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture has become a key issue in many European countries. How have farmers engaged in this type of process modified their practices and in what respect can this help to design pathways for reducing the use of inputs? To answer this question, we developed a methodology for analysing farmers' trajectories, tracing the dynamics of change towards reduced use of inputs (fertilizers and pesticides) throughout a farmer's career, based on the notion of agronomic-coherence phases (input intensive, rationalized, integrated crop management for one crop, for several crops, integrated production and organic farming). Applying this framework to a sample of 20 field crop farmers in Champagne Berrichonne (Indre, France) allowed us to identify three main types of transitional pathway. These pathways differ with regard to the sequence of the different agronomic-coherence phases, and to performance in terms of input use during the last phase. We also identified key transitional practices which play a pivotal role in the transition from one phase to another. We discuss the role of learning features in the path dependency. In terms of agricultural sustainability, this study contributes to agricultural extension and to the design of transitional pathways towards less input-dependent cropping systems.

Why are ecological, low-input, multi-resistant wheat cultivars slow to develop commercially? A Belgian agricultural 'lock-in' case study (2008) 🗎🗎

The use of multi-resistant cultivars allows a significant reduction in fungicide use in low-input cropping systems. However, many major wheat cultivars used in Europe remain sensitive to frequent diseases and require fungicide protection. This paper aims at understanding the factors explaining the low level of adoption of multi-resistant wheat cultivars in Wallonia (Belgium). Cultivar adoption has been an important topic of research, but few analyses have been done in Europe in the past decades. We used a systems approach combining a survey among stakeholders in the food chain and a systematic analysis of the publications of extension services. We identified twelve factors impeding wider adoption of multi-resistant cultivars. These factors explain why current wheat-cropping systems are maintained in a 'pesticide lock-in' situation, an economic concept that could be used more frequently to study agricultural innovations. Considering these intangible 'barriers' to current and forthcoming innovations is a first step towards a more comprehensive policy to promote sustainable agriculture. Similarities between Wallonia and France are discussed and methods of promoting wide use of resistant cultivars; are proposed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Impacts of human behaviour in agri-environmental policies: How adequate is homo oeconomicus in the design of market-based conservation instruments? (2021) 🗎🗎

Models of human-environment systems frequently employ the model of rational behaviour in which a rational, perfectly informed and self-interested homo oeconomicus maximises individual utility. This model has been criticised with regard to its adequacy in models of social-ecological systems, because other motives exist beyond profit maximisation that affect land-use decisions. The question arises what consequences do these other motives have on the design and performance of environmental policy instruments. For this, two existing generic models of agri-environmental schemes are expanded to consider alternative landowner behaviours: agents make mistakes in their search for the profit-maximising land-use decision, are inequity-averse and care about the profits of their neighbours, and are influenced by their neighbours? decisions. In the analyses even large deviations from the model of homo oeconomicus have generally only a small or moderate effect on the cost-effective design and the level of cost-effectiveness of the two agri-environmental schemes. With the models being rather simplistic, the results should not be used for specific policy advice but to point out and argue that the model of homo oeconomicus should not be abandoned prematurely, but its scope in environmental policy advice needs to be assessed more thoroughly both empirically and theoretically.

More than two decades of Agri-Environment schemes: Has the profile of participating farms changed? (2021) 🗎🗎

The agri-food sector is under increased pressure from consumers to improve on the sustainability of production processes. Policies that incentivise farmers to improve environmental performance, such as agri-environment schemes (AES), are increasingly important. Understanding the choice to participate in these programmes aids policymakers in designing schemes that meet participation and environmental goals. While a number of studies have investigated the decision using cross-sectional data on one or multiple locations, very few have used longitudinal data to investigate the impact of institutional changes over time. Using Ireland as a case study, this paper uses a nationally representative panel of data spanning 23 years to model the impact of scheme and policy changes on the type of farms participating in AES. This paper argues that environmental issues surrounding intensive farms (such as the loss of nutrients and sediment to water and greenhouse gas emissions) are not being optimally addressed in scheme design and further development of such programmes is needed to reduce negative environmental impacts.

Agriculture after Brexit (2017) 🗎🗎

The paper considers the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on the UK, and sets out three options for a new British Agricultural Policy after Brexit. These options are: carrying over the subsidy regime with an emphasis on food security and self sufficiency; maintaining the CAP architecture, but shifting more of the CAP subsidies away from payments for land ownership towards more spending on environmental schemes; and providing public money only for public goods. The third option is advocated, after a transitional path allows time for farmers to adapt.

Factors underlying farmers' intentions to perform unsubsidised agri-environmental measures (2016) 🗎🗎

Over the last decades there is a growing body of literature on how to enhance farmers' participation in voluntary subsidised agri-environmental programmes. However, additional unsubsidised agri-environmental measures that farmers perform are often ignored. The willingness to perform these measures may give a better insight into farmers' motivation for agri-environmental measures than subsidised measures because it likely depends only on farmers' intrinsic motivation and not on extrinsic factors such as a financial compensation. In this study we used an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to investigate which factors are associated with farmers' intention to perform unsubsidised agri-environmental measures. Our results demonstrate that attitude, perceived social norms and perceived personal ability are significantly associated with farmers' intention to perform these measures. However, self-identity is the most dominant predictor of farmers' intentions. Furthermore we found that Environmental Cooperatives (ECs) positively influence farmers' willingness to perform additional unsubsidised measures by means of facilitation and group pressure. We conclude that in order to increase farmers' willingness to perform agri-environmental measures, self-identity should be addressed by means of e.g. benchmarking instruments in combination with commitment making or labelling of environmental friendly identities. Also, ECs are more important for unsubsidised measures than previously assumed - we recommended that they change their focus to include unsubsidised as well as subsidised conservation. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reducing deforestation and enhancing sustainability in commodity supply chains: interactions between governance interventions and cattle certification in Brazil (2015) 🗎🗎

A large number of governance interventions are being developed in order to reduce deforestation and enhance the sustainability of commodity supply chains across the tropics. The extent to which individual agricultural commodity supply chain interventions can achieve scale, and environmental or social objectives, depends in part on the ways in which those interventions interact with other interventions. We use a case-study of the new Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) cattle certification program in Brazil to explore the different ways in which governance interventions interact. We examine the broad landscape of policies and programs that affect sustainability in the cattle supply chain in Brazil, and assess whether such interventions support or constrain the scaling up of the SAN cattle program. We conducted semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders from government, private sector, and civil society organizations. We found that multiple interventions are acting in a complementary manner to enhance sustainability and therefore enable the scaling up of the SAN program, by aiding compliance with environmental laws, adoption of good production practices, and improved monitoring. At the same time, limited development, implementation, and complementarity of some interventions could be antagonistic to the SAN program's expansion because they maintain a context in which many actors operate far below the sustainability criteria required by the program. Our holistic approach enables us to identify specific gaps in the complex landscape of governance interventions in Brazil. Greater strategic complementarity and coordination between interventions may catalyze a more coherent and effective pathway to reduced deforestation and enhanced sustainability.

A Review of the Global Pesticide Legislation and the Scale of Challenge in Reaching the Global Harmonization of Food Safety Standards (2015) 🗎🗎

Pesticide use is important in agriculture to protect crops and improve productivity. However, pesticides have the potential to cause adverse human health or environmental effects, depending on exposure levels. This review examines existing pesticide legislation worldwide, focusing on the level of harmonization and impacts of differing legislation on food safety and trade. Pesticide legislation varies greatly worldwide, because countries have different requirements, guidelines, and legal limits for plant protection. Developed nations have more stringent regulations than developing countries, which lack the resources and expertise to adequately implement and enforce legislation. Global differences in pesticide legislation act as a technical barrier to trade. International parties such as the European Union (EU), Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have attempted to harmonize pesticide legislation by providing maximum residue limits (MRLs), but globally these limits remain variable. Globally harmonized pesticide standards would serve to increase productivity, profits, and trade and also enhance the ability to protect public health and the environment. (C) 2015 SETAC

Responding to environmental regulations through collaborative arrangements: Social aspects of manure partnerships in Denmark (2014) 🗎🗎

In livestock-intensive regions of Europe, on-farm application of manure and other fertilisers is being increasingly regulated to protect aquatic environments. This study examined collaborative arrangements between intensive livestock farms in Denmark with surplus manure and farms requiring crop nutrients, in order to manage the manure resource at landscape scale and comply with environmental regulations. The extent of collaborative arrangements for manure among Danish farms was explored at national scale using registry data. This showed that in 2009, 50% of all farms in Denmark, managing 70% of the area, were involved in manure exchange, indicating that collaborative arrangements are widespread. Based on this analysis, a sample of 1500 livestock farmers who had provided manure to others was selected for a survey to determine the nature of the manure arrangements in terms of which farmers make partnerships with, and how the arrangements function in practice. Multivariate analysis (multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis) of 644 respondents was used to identify specific types of manure partnerships. The vast majority of respondents knew their partner before they established the arrangement, either through family, neighbours or their local or professional network. These different social relations played an important role in defining four types of partnerships, differing in e.g. burden sharing of manure transportation and spreading, frequency of communication and transport distance. The four types identified provide additional information about decision-making on manure allocation, which to date is mainly based on spatial-economic models. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Effect of Mandatory Agro-Environmental Policy on Farm Fertiliser and Pesticide Expenditure (2012) 🗎🗎

EU farmers are subject to mandatory cross-compliance measures, requiring them to meet environmental conditions to be eligible for public support. These obligations reinforce incentives for farmers to change their behaviour towards the environment. We apply quasi-experimental methods to measure the causal relationship between cross-compliance and some specific farm environmental performance. We find that cross-compliance reduced farm fertiliser and pesticide expenditure. This result also holds for farmers who participated in other voluntary agro-environmental schemes. However, the results do not support our expectations that farmers who relied on larger shares of public payments had a stronger motivation to improve their environmental performance.

Special Interests, Regulatory Quality, and the Pesticides Overload (2011) 🗎🗎

Pesticides overuse is a serious threat to ecosystems and wildlife, human health, and agricultural sustainability. So far, however, social scientists have not produced systematic evidence on the political-economic determinants of pesticides overuse. We argue that the agrochemical industry, as a profit-motivated interest group, will only mobilize politically to avoid reductions in pesticides use when regulatory institutions are potentially capable of correcting a market failure. If regulatory institutions are weakened by corruption or other factors, pesticides overuse occurs with or without the influence of the agrochemical industry. We test this interactive theory systematically against quantitative data on pesticides use in 24 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, 1991-2003. Using corruption and other indicators to capture bureaucratic quality, we find substantively large and statistically robust interactive effects. The agrochemical industry is a crucial determinant of pesticides use in nations with low corruption, whereas the agrochemical industry has no effect on pesticides use under corrupt regulatory institutions. Troublingly, these results imply that reduced corruption may not improve actual regulatory effectiveness unless political institutions can somehow constrain the influence of special interests.

Runoff and soil erosion in arable Britain: changes in perception and policy since 1945 (2010) 🗎🗎

The realisation that runoff and soil erosion was a problem came late to Britain and policies to tackle the problem have evolved slowly and may well have a taken a different route to that in other countries. The perception of soil erosion and runoff in Britain by three interest groups (researchers, policy makers and farmers) has changed over time since the 1940s. Prior to 1970 none of the groups considered erosion and runoff were problems. From then to 1985 researchers found that erosion was widespread. Between 1985 and 2005 researchers not only confirmed that erosion was a problem, but that runoff and its impacts (muddy floods and pollution of water courses by sediment, phosphate and pesticides) were also problems. These widespread and costly economic and environmental impacts led policy makers to tackle the problems of erosion and runoff. From 2005 farmers have had to keep their land in 'Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition' by, amongst other things, attempting to curtail erosion and runoff, to comply with regulation in order to receive subsidy. Policy change was also stimulated by changes in the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy and the passing by the EU of the 'Water Framework Directive'. Policy, if it is to be evidence based, will always lag behind research. There is a continuing need for field-based monitoring to assess if regulation is working, to ensure compliance, and as a basis for future policy. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Scaling down the European model of agriculture: the case of the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme in Ireland (2009) 🗎🗎

Recent reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy have led to much discussion of the European multifunctional model of agriculture in both policy and academic circles. Accordingly, European agriculture provides numerous social and environmental benefits and as a result should be supported through a system of payments which directly target those benefits. The agri-environmental measures specified under pillar II of the Common Agricultural Policy are supposed to exemplify the multifunctional model of agriculture, and the macro-level debates surrounding the introduction and evolution of these measures have been the subject of much scholarly research. However, very little research has been conducted into how the actors responsible for implementing these measures at the local level react to the macro-level definitions and interpretations of agri-environmental problems and their solution. This article examines the specific case of the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme in Ireland, focusing on how this scheme is viewed by diverse actors (farmers, government officials, and environmentalists) in the environmentally sensitive area known as the Burren, how these views complement or contradict the narrative of multifunctional agriculture promoted at the EU level of governance, and how this narrative is mediated by a national agri-environmental policy community. Results suggest the need to consider how policy narratives and instruments prominent at the macro-global level of governance enter into the life-worlds, cultures, and ecologies of a variety of actors at the national and local levels of governance, and in the process are reinterpreted, resisted, and transformed.