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Purpose: To highlight the way a public policy aiming to achieve a 50% decrease of pesticides use in France reframed advice provision in public and private networks. Design/methodology/approach: We developed a framework to analyze intermediation in a public funded network, a farmers' association, and a network of co-operatives. The framework captures how advice provision is organized for supporting farmers in redesigning their cropping systems and achieving large-scale farmer participation in such change processes. Findings: (1) All three networks recognize the value of on-farm redesign for pioneers, and the role of farmers' groups but significant differences appear between the networks' intermediary practices and objects; (2) These differences can be related to their way to balance between evidence-based knowledge and farmer's practical experience and ownership of the target; (3) The public DEPHY farm network appears to be an arena in which different advisory models compete; (4) Also specific intermediary practices and objects to involved new farmers in a transition towards less pesticide use were designed, scaling up and out issues are still challenging both public and private advisory organizations. Practical implications: intermediation skills and objects are still to be developed to support on-farm redesign alongside with large-scale farmer participation, and to identify and overcome systemic barriers. Policy makers and advisory boards should clarify their underlying assumptions regarding the triggers for change. Theoretical implications: The framework is a relevant contribution to understand transition in the making and the way AKIS players fail to reassess their underlying assumptions regarding the way to achieve scaling up and out processes. Originality/value: Analyzing relations between public and private networks by exploring the way such networks design and perform intermediation to implement a public policy.

How do change agents deal with the diversity of farmers' attitudes towards the future of agriculture? How do they themselves cope with change and understand their role as change agents? We chose a comprehensive, action-training approach to answer such questions and worked with agents belonging to two different extension networks. The agents acknowledged their historically built professional models and discussed their professional situations in relation to the need to develop new skills and to address new audiences. Some dimensions of these situations were pointed out as crucial in the change process: (1) the agent's position among farmers and those who act to change farming practices at local level; (2) the tension between the agent's engagement in promoting more environmentally-friendly practices, and the role that managers and farmers assign to the agent; and (3) the way of combining scientific and technical knowledge with farmers' own knowledge. Our work also highlighted the diversity of the agents' points of view on change at farm level (discontinuity versus continuity) and the way to handle it: respectively by making the discontinuity visible and manageable at farm level, or by supporting a step-by-step management of change at cropping-system level. The added value has been to develop a method which enables advisers to learn together from their professional situations, and thus to show the need to investigate how the agent's subjectivity is a key driver of a change intervention. (Contains 4 notes and 2 tables.)

Discrepancies between farmers' and farm management advisors' perceptions of the advisory relationship were used to build a system of co-monitoring support. The system attempts to maintain a common frame of reference and includes periodic reexamination of the advisor's role in the problem-solving process. (SK)

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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Malgré de nombreuses mesures d’accompagnement à la réduction des pesticides, leur usage ne cesse de croître en France. Doit-on pour autant considérer que rien ne change ? Cet article veut mettre en lumière la manière dont des acteurs de la recherche, du conseil agricole, du développement agricole et rural s’investissent dans des activités d’intermédiation pour accompagner la réduction de l’usage des pesticides. Ces activités d’intermédiation visent à concilier leur engagement dans l’accompagnement au changement avec leur mandat professionnel et avec une diversité de stratégies individuelles ou collectives des acteurs du monde agricole, déployées en réponse à l’injonction de réduction des pesticides. Pour donner à voir ces activités peu visibles, nous avons conçu un « observatoire » d’analyse de l’activité pour explorer, avec treize acteurs de l’accompagnement au changement, le sens qu’ils donnent eux-mêmes à leur action dans les différents contextes où ils l’exercent. Les matériaux produits nous permettent de distinguer trois types d’engagement dans l’accompagnement à la réduction des pesticides, pour lesquels la construction de la légitimité des activités d’intermédiation diffère. Notre attention particulière aux ressources mobilisées dans les activités d’intermédiation nous permet de montrer comment celles-ci reposent sur la capacité à naviguer entre une diversité de solutions et de modèles d’accompagnement au changement, au vu de la diversité d’acteurs concernés par le problème des pesticides. Ainsi, ce travail contribue à enrichir la vision des activités d’accompagnement au changement dans le secteur agricole et soulève la question de la formation à ces activités d’intermédiation, qui prolongent les instruments de politiques publiques et de conseil.

Objectives: An increase of intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL) is commonly found in lymphocytic colitis (LC) and collagenous colitis (CC), and has also been observed in the colonic mucosa of some patients with celiac disease or celiac-like disease. Thus, a similar mechanism could play a role in these apparently different entities. The aim of this work was to determine the phenotype of IEL and of lamina propria lymphocytes in the setting of LC and CC. Methods: Biopsies were taken from all segments of the large bowel and from the ileon of eight patients with CC, four patients with LC, and 10 controls. An immunohistochemical study using monoclonal antibodies directed against IEL, T-cells, helper T-cells, suppressor/ cytotoxic T-cells, HLA DR antigens, T-cell-bearing T-cell receptor (TcR) αβ, and TcR γδ was carried out. Results: There was an increase in mean numbers of IELs in both LC and CC, with significantly more CD 8 IELs than CD 4 IELs. Most IELs were bearing TcR alpha;β; TcR γδ-bearing cells were not increased in CC or LC. CD 4+ helper T-cells predominated in the lamina propria. Epithelial cells of colonic mucosa abnormally expressed HLA DR antigens. There were no significant differences between findings in LC and CC. Conclusion: This study suggests that the immune abnormalities are similar in LC and CC and that a MHC-restricted immune mechanism could be involved in both diseases. Evidence for this includes: I) the accumulation of CD 4+ T-cells within the lamina propria, 2) epithelial damage closely related to the increase of CD 8 TcR αβ IELs, and 3) abnormal class II MHC molecule expression on epithelial cells of colonic mucosa. Furthermore, the results suggest that the putative immune mechanisms underlying LC or CC are probably different from those that are incriminated in celiac disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pancreatic uptake of a natural amino acid, L-methionine, was measured in 58 patients using a scintillation camera. This was possible by labelling L-methionine with 11C, a short-lived isotope produced in a cyclotron. Time-activity-curves obtained in areas of interest selected over the pancreas in 25 normal subjects and in 14 alcoholic patients showed a plateau or a slight increase of activity with time. In contrast, in 19 patients with chronic pancreatitis an initial increase in radioactivity was followed by a decrease for 10 to 20 minutes and then by a plateau. The ratio of the height of the plateau at the 50th minute to the height of the peak was 0.74 +/- 0.21 in these patients, whereas it was 0.96 +/- 0.09 in the other subjects (P less than 0.001). This result was compared with direct measurements of 11C radioactivity and of amylase and bicarbonate in duodenal aspirate. The median amount of 11C incorporated into protein at the 70th minute was 53% of total activity in the control group, 28% in alcoholic patients, and only 3% in chronic pancreatitis, the differences between these values were highly significant. The absence of a peak of radioactivity in the duodenal juice, and the existence of a correlation between total 11C output and amylase output suggested that there was no release of protein in the duodenum in chronic pancreatitis. These results also suggested that the peak observed by external detection could be due to amino acid back-diffusion from the pancreas into the blood. External detection with 11C-L-methionine could be used for the assessment of pancreatic dysfunction in man. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dans le domaine de la gestion de l’eau, la participation des acteurs locaux et la territorialisation des modes d’action sont devenus les maîtres-mots des politiques publiques. Cet article s’intéresse aux intermédiations permises par la démarche Co-click’eau. Celle-ci vise à accompagner, via la production d’une expertise collective, différents acteurs d’un territoire dans la prise de décision pour agir sur la pression agricole qui s’exerce sur la qualité de l’eau. Dans un contexte où l’agriculture est mise en cause dans le problème de la qualité des eaux, l’objectif de cet article est d’identifier la capacité de cette démarche, à partir de connaissances techniques et agronomiques construites localement et mobilisées dans la construction de scénarios, à aider les acteurs à élaborer un plan d’actions. Étudiant la mise en œuvre de la démarche dans trois territoires, nous montrons que les lieux de la participation institués par le cadrage national ne sont pas ceux où s’opèrent les traductions et intermédiations qui rendent possible l’action collective.