Pierre Gasselin

French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) | INRAE · Department of Science for Action and Development

Purpose: Agricultural advisory services are perceived by many actors involved in rural development as a key driver behind innovation processes in agriculture. However, changes in national and global contexts cause dramatic changes in the orientation of advisory services, their organisation and their methods of intervention. This article aims to ana...

Small-scale coffee producers are particularly exposed to a very fluctuant market. The present work aims at characterising the adaptation of small-scale coffee and honey producers to the 1999–2003 coffee crisis in the Guatemalan Highlands from a systemic and agronomical perspective. Working with a homogeneous sample of 34 families we identify up to...

De nouveaux modèles agricoles et alimentaires se déploient dans les territoires en réponse aux critiques des formes anciennes et pour faire face à de nouveaux enjeux. Ils incarnent des archétypes de la diversité observée, des projets d’acteurs ou bien de nouvelles normes. Les auteurs analysent ici des situations de coexistence et de confrontation d...

This article discusses the economic dimensions of agroecological farming systems in Europe. It firstly theoretically elaborates the reasons why, and under what conditions, agroecological farming systems have the potential to produce higher incomes than farms that follow the conventional logic. This theoretical exposition is then followed by a prese...

IDEA4 is a method for assessing and analyzing farm sustainability. Its theoretical framework combines a dual approach based on the three dimensions of sustainability - agroecological, socio-territorial, economic - and the five properties of sustainable agricultural systems: Capacity to produce and reproduce goods and services, autonomy, robustness,...

This book is based on the premise that an improved understanding of the coexistence and confrontation of agricultural and food models, and thus of their interactions at different spatial and organisational scales, facilitates recognition and support for combinations of these models that can potentially be useful for sustainable territorial developm...

Place-based coordinations are becoming strategically important to ensure the agroecological transition. Indeed, collaborations between farms, in spite of all their diversity, are necessary to make agroecological innovation possible since ecological and biogeochemical flows exceed the farm scale. But the segmentation and heterogeneity of ‘agricultur...

This book analyses situations of coexistence and confrontation of agricultural and food models according to four major dimensions of territorial development: the tension between specialisation and diversification; innovation; adaptation; and food transition. New agricultural and food models are being deployed in territories around the world in resp...

Le tocsin a sonné. L'urgence écologique, énergétique, mais aussi sociale et alimentaire, impose de métamorphoser les formes d'agriculture et d'alimentation dont nous sommes les héritiers. La diversité des agricultures, qui façonne notre histoire depuis le Néolithique, est le fruit et le ferment d'une diversité alimentaire. Penser et engager cette t...

The higher intensity of labor observed in many agroecological farming systems has been little studied by the scientific community, especially in terms of work organization. Narrative interview research concerning 34 farmers in six French farm machinery cooperatives, on the basis of the farming styles framework, allows us to highlight a specific sty...

Robots are heralded as part of a new revolution in agriculture. The agricultural robot’s capacity to reduce working time or improve working conditions is often advanced as a major contribution to sustainable agriculture. But the transformations of work appear to be more complex. Here we review the transformations of work subsequent to adoption of a...

Le développement de la traite robotisée connait en France un essor sans précédent depuis les années 2000. Alors que beaucoup de travaux s'intéressent aux transformations techniques de l'exploitation, la question de savoir quels types d'exploitation investissent dans un robot de traite reste soumise à des réponses contradictoires. Nous proposons ici...

Le développement des Appellations d'Origine Protégée (AOP) s'est construit en alternative aux logiques d'industrialisation et de standardisation des agricultures, en revendiquant des modes de production ancrés dans leur terroir, valorisant souvent des races et espèces régionales, ce qui conduit parfois à présenter les AOP comme des dispositifs favo...

Although evidence continues to indicate an urgent need to transition food systems away from industrialized monocultures and toward agroecological production, there is little sign of significant policy commitment toward food system transformation in global North geographies. The authors, a consortium of researchers studying the land-food nexus in gl...

French farm machinery cooperatives (Cuma) are confronted with greater diversity in production systems. Little studied, the question of diversity in agricultural collectives is central to questioning the evolution and sustainability of cooperatives within their territory. Is it possible to work together with a diversity of systems and associated val...

This paper aims to study conditions of the early stage of collective action in the Val Llech project inspired by Biovallée de la Drôme, a territorial approach to ecological transitions. From interviews with key actors regarding their motivations and participation in the project, we examined which parts of their perception of the issues to be addres...

Les Organismes nationaux à vocation agricole et rurale (Onvar) représentent des structures collectives très originales au service du développement durable intégré des territoires. Une grille issue de l’économie institutionnelle d’appréciation de la valeur ajoutée territoriale est appliquée à un matériau empirique original (rapport d’évaluation d’ac...

Face aux nouveaux enjeux de l’agriculture, les collectifs d’agriculteurs sont encouragés pour favoriser les pratiques agroécologiques. Les Coopératives d’Utilisation de Matériel Agricole (Cuma) sont en particulier des lieux propices à ces développements. Ces coopératives se transforment, notamment face à une diversité plus importante des systèmes p...

Au regard des autres pays, la France se caractérise par la présence forte et continue des Cuma depuis maintenant 75 ans. La plasticité de cette forme organisationnelle explique son développement singulier et son adaptabilité à des pratiques sociales très différentes (du partage de machines à la réflexion sur la transition agroécologique). Dans ce t...

The higher intensity of labour observed in many agroecological farming systems is barely examined by science, particularly in terms of work organization. Our research on the French farm machinery cooperatives, based on the farming styles framework, allows highlighting a particular style of farm work conducive for the agroecological transition. Farm...

Agricultural robots are promoted as a solution to satisfy a growing demand for products while minimizing resource use. Following the recent development of the industry of farming robotics, we question how these technologies transform agriculture in a critical way. We carried out a systematic review of literature questioning the transformations of w...

Ce chapitre rend compte des modalités de coopération locale entre agriculteurs hétérogènes engagés dans des coopératives d’utilisation de matériel agricole (Cuma). Les auteurs montrent que les agriculteurs de chacune des cinq Cuma étudiées, quoique différents (bio et conventionnels, agriculture de conservation ou non, diverses productions et modali...

https://link.springer.com/journal/41130/volumes-and-issues/101-2

https://youtu.be/nvWc_c_tGsY

The coexistence and confrontation of agricultural and food models are an issue that is evincing much interest from the media and the political and professional fields. It is also an active area of research, a fact which led to a call for articles and the publication of a special issue. This article introduces and analyzes the 9 articles selected an...

The coexistence and confrontation of agricultural and food models are an issue that is evincing much interest from the media and the political and professional fields. It is also an active area of research, a fact which led to a call for articles and the publication of a special issue. This article introduces and analyzes the 9 articles selected an...

This article proposes a research agenda for situations of coexistence of territorial agricultural and food models. Indeed, new agricultural and food models are being deployed at the territorial scale in response to criticisms of existing models and to meet new challenges. These new models embody archetypes of observed diversity, actors’ projects or...

Alors que l'agroécologie est fortement débattue depuis 2012 en France, cet article révèle une agroécologie silencieuse et peu visible parmi les agriculteurs conventionnels, à partir d'études de cas de Cuma (coopératives d'utilisation de matériel agricole). Ces agriculteurs mobilisent davantage les fonctionnements écologiques grâce à la coopération...

In developed countries, the number of people working in agriculture keeps going down. Agricultural work is changing as wage-earning is increasing as well as part-time work and outsourcing. At the same time, robots are developed in many agricultural sectors (livestock, horticulture, field crops) and are part of the changes in work. This systematic r...

The contribution of the multi-level perspective (MLP) to study transition dynamics is widely recognized. MLP involves examining interactions between three socio-technical levels: niche, regime and landscape. Empirical analysis of niche-regime interactions when applying this framework to agricultural transitions to sustainability remains challenging...

Agronomists have developed a wide range of methods and diagnostic tools to qualify or evaluate the situations they encounter at different scales and organization levels (parcel, farm, territory) and to meet various objectives (production, quality and health, soil fertility, biodiversity, diffuse pollution, economic performance, landscape, etc...)....

Presentación del artículo "van der Ploeg J. D. et al. 2019. The economic potential of agroecology: empirical evidence from Europe in Journal of Rural Studies, 71:46-61."

Esta comunicación presenta el proceso y los resultados del Proyecto CAP VERT cuyo objetivo fue analizar la relación entre nuevas formas de cooperación entre productores y procesos de transición agroecológica en Francia. Primeramente, hacemos una breve recapitulación histórica de la “modernización” de la agricultura francesa, propugnada “exitosament...

Cet article présente le nouveau cadre conceptuel d’évaluation de la durabilité de l’exploitation agricole développé dans la méthode IDEA v4. Il combine une approche évaluative basée sur les objectifs assignés à une agriculture durable et une évaluation des propriétés des systèmes agricoles durables. Il s’ancre dans le champ de la durabilité forte,...

The Natural Resource Economics Review (Departmental Bulletin Paper, Natural Resource Economics Division, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University)

Following to the presentation about the transformation of French family farming, this article aim at studying the concept of agricultural model and how it leads to discuss the stakes of coexistence and confrontation of different forms of agriculture. In the first part of my presentation, I shall expose the main features of French agriculture and it...

In the Global North, local inter-farm cooperation offers opportunities for farmers to better access and manage equipment, labor and material resources. Yet, its potential to pave the way to organize the local collaborations needed for the agroecological transition remains hidden. This paper, based on the experience of French farm machinery cooperat...

Confrontés à une plus grande variabilité climatique, une volatilité accrue des cours et à des impasses agronomiques grandissantes, des agriculteurs cherchent à gagner en autonomie en s'engageant dans des pratiques et systèmes agricoles intensifiant l'usage de processus écologiques. Ils mobilisent pour cela une diversité de formes de coopérations av...

In contemporary times where farming models are challenged through deep transformations of agricultural organizations and markets, this books proposes a new visit of the diversity of family forms of production to explore their current transformations all over the world. By adopting a comprehensive perspective it allows bringing together several dime...

Les tergiversations nationales et européennes autour de l'interdiction du glyphosate ont à nouveau illustré la dépendance de l'agriculture française aux pesticides, notamment en agriculture de conservation. Ce modèle technique, basé sur le non-labour, s'accompagne majoritairement de l'usage d'herbicides, en particulier ceux à base de glyphosate. Ce...

La récente mise à l'agenda politique de l'agroécologie en France a suscité de nombreux débats et éclairages sur ce qui peut être qualifié d'agroécologique. Cet article révèle une agroécologie particulière, se développant de façon silencieuse et peu visible parmi les agriculteurs conventionnels. À partir d'études de groupes en Cuma (coopératives d'u...

Agricultural advisory services are important to improve farm performances and the farmers’ ability to innovate. However, their effectiveness is regularly called into question. In this chapter, we discuss the evolution of agricultural advisory services and show how the mechanisms and methods used to provide advice have changed over time. There exist...

Globalisation has not standardised different territories’ agricultural and food models, despite their worldwide “circulation” for example during the green revolution, the industrialisation of food processing and distribution or in the affirmation of agroecology as a shared horizon (FAO, 2018). Territories, sectors and innovation systems are thus ma...

Muitos pecuaristas franceses, sócios de cooperativas de maquinas, procuram se tornar mais autônomos em relação aos mercados. Para concretizá-lo, eles desenvolvem novas práticas através de uma maior cooperação entre produtores. Nosso trabalho, baseado na análise de seis cooperativas de maquinas, visa esclarecer esse fenômeno, com base no trabalho an...

Muitos pecuaristas franceses, sócios de cooperativas de maquinas, procuram se tornar mais autônomos em relação aos mercados. Para concretizá-lo, eles desenvolvem novas práticas através de uma maior cooperação entre produtores. Nosso trabalho, baseado na análise de seis cooperativas de maquinas, visa esclarecer esse fenômeno, com base no trabalho an...

Many French livestock farmers, member of farm machinery cooperatives, seek to become more autonomous in relation to markets. To realize it, they develop new farming practices by relying to a greater extent on peer-to-peer cooperation. Our communication, based on the study of six machinery coops , aims to shed new light on this phenomenon, building...

This article shows how new theoretical work on assessing sustainability of farms, carried out as part of a multidisciplinary approach, allowed a new theoretical framework to be develop, along with version 4 of the IDEA Method (Indicateurs de Durabilité d'une Exploitation Agricole). The first section divides existing studies taken from the literatur...

La coexistence et la confrontation des modèles agricoles et alimentaires est une thématique d’actualité dans le champ professionnel et politique mais qui reste peu instruite dans la recherche. Croisant les observations du Nord et du Sud et à l’écoute des préoccupations de professionnels agricoles, le département SAD a souhaité mettre en avant la co...

Autonomy is a key principle of agroecology. First scientific works of Gliessman and Altieri have positioned autonomy from the markets and external forces as one of the goals of the agroecological prospect. Farmers' and peasants' organizations, firstly in Latin America, have adopted this goal to strengthen their action for the emancipation and the l...

Le conseil en agriculture est un service important pour améliorer les performances des exploitations et les capacités des agriculteurs à innover. Toutefois, son efficacité est régulièrement questionnée. Dans ce chapitre, nous abordons l’évolution du conseil en agriculture, pour montrer tant l’évolution des dispositifs que celle des méthodes pour fo...

Des éleveurs laitiers en Coopérative d’utilisation de matériel en commun (Cuma) développent de nouvelles pratiques pour gagner en autonomie fourragère et protéique, voire économique et décisionnelle. Ce mouvement d’autonomisation s’articule avec des recompositions de leur organisation en Cuma et modes de coopération de proximité afin de mieux accéd...

Des éleveurs laitiers en Coopérative d’utilisation de matériel en commun (Cuma) développent de nouvelles pratiques pour gagner en autonomie fourragère et protéique, voire économique et décisionnelle. Ce mouvement d’autonomisation s’articule avec des recompositions de leur organisation en Cuma et modes de coopération de proximité afin de mieux accéd...

Family-run farm enterprises, territories and policies in Argentina

Le conseil en agriculture est un service important pour améliorer les performances des exploitations et les capacités des agriculteurs à innover. Toutefois, son efficacité est régulièrement questionnée. Dans ce chapitre, nous abordons l’évolution du conseil en agriculture, pour montrer tant l’évolution des dispositifs que celle des méthodes pour fo...

La thématique de la coexistence et la confrontation des modèles agricoles et alimentaires est d’actualité dans le champ politique et professionnel. Elle reste cependant peu instruite dans la recherche. Dans certains pays, le développement agricole s’organise autour de modèles qui s’incarnent dans des formes sociales et techniques d’agriculture bien...

From a broad review of the literature and empirical studies conducted in Latin America and in France, we consolidate the concept of activity system applied to family farming. This concept brings together fundamental works of various disciplines on the notions of activity, work, knowledge, resources, decision-making and rationality, dynamic of syste...

In France, new agroecological policies demonstrate a movement of collective innovation experienced by farmers within machinery cooperatives. The present paper aims at understanding how French farmers recompose machinery-and labour-sharing arrangements by developing agroecological practices. Our methodology is based on six case studies, by combining...

Cooperation in farm work is often considered as a disappearing phenomenon in modern agriculture. This paper analyzes the historical and current factors explaining the persistence and continuous renewal of cooperation in the French context. Some case studies among the French machinery cooperatives were mobilized to illustrate the general trends. Eco...

In Western European agriculture, an increasing number of conventional farmers are actively augmenting the autonomy of their farm enterprises. They do so, amongst others, through decreasing the external inputs, whilst simultaneously improving the use of internal resources. Thus, low external input farming systems emerge that increasingly enhance eco...

CITATION: Winkel T, Bommel P, Chevarría-Lazo M, Cortes G, Del Castillo C, Gasselin P, Léger F, Nina-Laura JP, Rambal S, Tichit M, Tourrand JF, Vacher JJ, Vassas-Toral A, Vieira-Pak M, Joffre R (2016) Panarchy of an indigenous agroecosystem in the globalized market: The quinoa production in the Bolivian Altiplano. Global Environmental Change 39: 195...

Some conventional dairy farmers, organised in farm machinery cooperatives, are implementing new practices to develop their autonomy. This paper aims at presenting the results of a research work, combining a farming system and a sociological approach, to understand the determinants and modes of this search for autonomy. 22 dairy farmers who are memb...

In this paper, we present a framework and a methodology to identify the long-term strategies of small-scale farmers dealing with uncertainties. To do so, we link the Activity System framework to the concept of perceived vulnerability and analyse the small-scale farmers' trajectories. Based on a sample of 34 small-scale coffee producers in Guatemala...