2017/12/21 by Lamine, Claire, Simon, Sylvaine, Marc Audergon, Jean +5
#0 #Crop protection practices #Cultivar-practices interactions #Cultivars #Idéotypes variétaux #Interactions variété/conduite #Orchard #Pesticide use reduction #Pratiques culturales #Prunus #Réduction des pesticides #Socio-technical system #Système socio-technique #Transitions #Verger
paper · doi:10.15454/1.5138445077696033e12
The Prunus project has explored the issue of sustainable orchards (re)design, through an integrative approach articulating the different dimensions of varietal choice, pest management strategies, and larger evolutions within the agrifood system (including not only the economic actors but also extension, research, public policies and consumers). It brought together sociologists, economists, agronomists and geneticists, as well as diverse stakeholders in a socio-historical analysis, farm surveys, and multi-actors workshops for the co-construction of varietal ideotypes. Our analyses show the impact of the constraints set by retailers and intermediaries, in a context of production calendar extension, on the innovation model (fruit ability to be transported and stored and fruit visual aspect), to the expense of environmental and farm viability criteria. Farm surveys show a large variability of practices observed in orchards producing similar levels of yield and suggest that a substantive reduction in pesticide use can be achieved in apricot production. New techniques but also references and exchange arenas should be developed to achieve this. Regarding varietal innovation and cultivars conception, we show that we need to develop multi-criteria approaches. Finally we how how multi-actors approaches help discussing the constraints and criteria of the diverse components of the agrifood system in an ecolologisation perspective