Stimulating transitions towards sustainable farming systems

How can the dynamics of the agro-food sector in the long run be addressed? We argue that sustainable agro-food systems cannot be developed through a simple improvement of existing systems, but will require a transition. Therefore, we focus on how transitions to sustainability could be initiated and supported, taking into account renewal initiatives at the farm level, organised projects, heterogeneous actors and differing interests. We argue that a transition will have to come from a range of novelties that initially have various misfits with an existing regime. To tackle these misfits will require a learning process that needs to be of a ‘reflexive’ nature which implies that various taken for granted characteristics of the regime and beliefs of stakeholders can be questioned. Another critical issue is that this learning not only takes place in a protected environment (or niche) but that new links with the existing regime need to be created. Only then can learning about novelties start a transformation process in the regime that may eventually lead to a transition.

[1]  R. Raven.  Strategic niche management for biomass: a comparative study on the experimental introduction of bioenergy technologies in the Netherlands and Denmark , 2005 .

[2]  D. Roep,et al.  Managing technical-institutional design processes: some strategic lessons from environmental co-operatives in the Netherlands , 2003 .

[3]  C. Lamine,et al.  Anticiper ou temporiser : injonctions environnementales et recompositions des identités professionnelles en céréaliculture , 2011 .

[4]  M. V. Asselt,et al.  More evolution than revolution: transition management in public policy , 2001 .

[5]  J. Voss,et al.  Reflexive governance for sustainable development , 2006 .

[6]  Hendrik N.J. Schifferstein,et al.  Food, People and Society. A European Perspective of Consumers' Food Choices , 2001 .

[7]  Frank W. Geels,et al.  Socio-technical scenarios as a tool for transition policy: an example from the traffic and transport domain , 2002 .

[8]  David Marshall,et al.  Food Availability and The European Consumer , 2001 .

[9]  H. Bradbury.  The SAGE Handbook of Action Research , 2007 .

[10]  A. P. Bos.  Instrumentalization Theory and Reflexive Design in Animal Husbandry , 2008 .

[11]  Antoine Hennion,et al.  A Sociology of Attachment: Music Amateurs, Drug Users , 1999 .

[12]  Floor Brouwer,et al.  Sustaining Agriculture and the Rural Environment; governance, policy and multifunctionality , 2004 .

[13]  S. Rayner,et al.  Human choice and climate change , 1998 .

[14]  F. Geels.  Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study , 2002 .

[15]  Mark Paine,et al.  The role of action-oriented learning theories for change in agriculture and rural networks , 2012 .

[16]  F. Geels.  Technological Transitions And System Innovations: A Co-evolutionary And Socio-technical Analysis , 2005 .

[17]  Mark Paine,et al.  Cow Up a Tree: Knowing and Learning for Change in Agriculture. Case Studies from Industrialised Countries , 2000 .

[18]  Karlheinz Knickel,et al.  Multifunctionality in European agriculture , 2004 .

[19]  Laurens Klerkx,et al.  Balancing multiple interests: embedding innovation intermediation in the agricultural knowledge infrastructure , 2008 .

[20]  S. F. Spoelstra,et al.  Practices for reflexive design: lessons from a Dutch programme on sustainable agriculture , 2004 .

[21]  Peter W.G. Groot Koerkamp,et al.  A novel design approach for livestock housing based on recursive control—with examples to reduce environmental pollution , 2003 .

[22]  Frank W. Geels,et al.  Normative contestation in transitions ‘in the making’: Animal welfare concerns and system innovation in pig husbandry , 2011 .

[23]  D. Loorbach.  Transition Management: New Mode of Governance for Sustainable Development , 2007 .

[24]  Marc Barbier,et al.  Bottling water, greening farmers: the socio-technical and managerial construction of a 'dispositif' for underground water quality protection , 2008 .

[25]  Leo Jansen,et al.  Sustainable Technology Development , 2000 .

[26]  Johan Schot,et al.  The usefulness of evolutionary models for explaining innovation. The case of the Netherlands in the nineteenth century , 1998 .

[27]  J. Jiggins,et al.  Governance of complex environmental situations through social learning: a synthesis of SLIM's lessons for research, policy and practice , 2007 .

[28]  Cees Leeuwis,et al.  Anchorage of innovations: Using the greenhouse effect to save energy , 2008 .

[29]  H. Renting,et al.  Methodological and Conceptual Issues in the Study of Multifunctionality and Rural Development , 2000 .

[30]  Marc Barbier,et al.  The ecologization of agricultural development and the Treadmill of sustainable development. A critique a state of transition , 2010 .

[31]  J. Grin,et al.  Coping with global environmental change, disasters and security: threats, challenges, vulnerabilities and risks , 2011 .

[32]  Anne Loeber,et al.  Theories of Policy Learning: Agency, Structure, and Change , 2006 .

[33]  Wyn Grant,et al.  The Common Agricultural Policy , 1998 .

[34]  J. Howells.  Intermediation and the role of intermediaries in innovation , 2006 .

[35]  T. Ulbricht,et al.  Government and agriculture in Western Europe 1880–1988 , 1990 .

[36]  K. Green,et al.  System Innovation and the Transition to Sustainability: Theory, Evidence and Policy , 2005 .

[37]  Marie-Noëlle Guillot,et al.  Acting as a Change Agent in Supporting Sustainable Agriculture: How to Cope with New Professional Situations? , 2011 .

[38]  John Grin.  The politics of transition governance in Dutch agriculture: conceptual understanding and implications for transition management , 2012 .

[39]  Marc Barbier,et al.  Une interprétation de la constitution de l'ESB comme problème public européen , 2003 .

[40]  P Ekins,et al.  Human Choice and Climate Change, Volumes 1-4 - Rayner, S. & Malone, E. Eds., Battelle Press, Columbus, Ohio (Review) , 1999 .

[41]  Adrian Smith,et al.  Translating Sustainabilities between Green Niches and Socio-Technical Regimes , 2007, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[42]  S. Spoelstra,et al.  Towards sustainable livestock production systems - outline of a Learning and Experimentation Strategy (LES). , 2010 .

[43]  Peter S. Hofman,et al.  Exploring system innovation in the electricity system through sociotechnical scenarios , 2010, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[44]  Bruno Lémery,et al.  Les agriculteurs dans la fabrique d'une nouvelle agriculture , 2003 .

[45]  Henri Mendras,et al.  The vanishing peasant: innovation and change in French agriculture. , 1972 .

[46]  Frédéric Goulet,et al.  Des tensions épistémiques et professionnelles en agriculture : Dynamiques autour des techniques sans labour et de leur évaluation environnementale , 2008 .

[47]  Martine Berlan-Darque,et al.  THE ECOLOGIZATION OF FRENCH AGRICULTURE , 1992 .

[48]  A. Giddens.  Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age , 1992, The New Social Theory Reader.

[49]  E. Rogers.  Diffusion of Innovations , 1962 .

[50]  A. P. Bos,et al.  Reflexive interactive design as an instrument for dual track governance. Paper presented at the International workshop on System Innovations, Knowledge Regimes, and Design Practices towards Sustainable Agriculture. , 2010 .

[51]  Marianne Cerf,et al.  Co-design as a distributed dialogical design. , 2010 .

[52]  John Grin,et al.  Global threats, global changes and connected communities in the global agrofood system , 2011 .

[53]  Frank W. Geels,et al.  Strategic niche management and sustainable innovation journeys: theory, findings, research agenda, and policy , 2008, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[54]  Nadarajah Sriskandarajah,et al.  Learning in European agricultural and rural networks: building a systemic research agenda , 2012 .

[55]  H Roberts,et al.  Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity , 1994 .

[56]  F. Geels,et al.  Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways , 2007 .

[57]  John Grin,et al.  “Doing” Reflexive Modernization in Pig Husbandry , 2008 .

[58]  D. Roep,et al.  Atlas van innoverende melkveehouders : Veelbelovende vertrekpunten bij het verduurzamen van de melkveehouderij , 2004 .

[59]  Carol Morris,et al.  Integrated farming systems: the third way for European agriculture? , 1999 .

[60]  René Barbier,et al.  La Recherche action , 1996 .

[61]  K. Green,et al.  System Innovation and the Transition to Sustainability , 2004 .

[62]  B. Latour.  Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern , 2004, Critical Inquiry.

[63]  J. Ingram.  Agronomist–farmer knowledge encounters: an analysis of knowledge exchange in the context of best management practices in England , 2008 .

[64]  F. Blackler.  Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organizations: An Overview and Interpretation , 1995 .