2014/01/01 by Célia Cholez, Cholez, Célia, Marie-Benoît Magrini +1
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Social Sciences · #Agri-food chain #Agriculture and Rural Development Research #Biodiversity #Biodiversité cultivée #Co-évolution #Diversification #Filières #French Urban and Social Studies #Institutions #Social Sciences and Governance #Transition
paper · doi:10.17180/d71a-mz60
openalex publication_date 2014/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
This article addresses how an agronomic innovation can spread across the sociotechnical agri-food system by studying drivers and barriers to grain legumes adoption in cropping or intercropping system. From a series of interviews with institutional actors like agricultural federations, associations or public organizations, we show that there are multiple points of view regarding economic and environmental interest of these crops; this highlights the difficulty of organizing collective action to support this diversification crop development. If intercropping can overcome technical issues encountered in grain legumes crops, its diffusion is limited by the agri-food chain organization (which is based on specialization and homogenization principles). To increase plant biodiversity in cropping systems, it is necessary that the whole sociotechnical agri-food system co-evolves, by developing share knowledge on legume crops, strong coordination among actors, within an institutional context promoting ecological intensification.