Agroecological transition: the work of farmers, advisers, teachers and researchers in question

The French Ministry of Agriculture has called for an agroecologicaltransition that reconciles farming and environment-friendlyapproaches. This is perceived as an injunction to change, deemed toominimalist by advocates of agroecology and too supportive ofenvironmental concerns by advocates of conventional and industrialfarming. Despite a degree of self-prescription, farmers are not the onlyones defining the content, the organization and the aim of their work:agricultural training, agricultural development, discussions betweenpeers, research, and regulations all contribute to its definition. Drawingon available research, we study the transformations of the work offarmers and of AKIS actors at play during the agroecologicaltransition. Our argument revolves around the importance, in theagroecological transition, of taking into account: (i) local particularities(situated ecological processes, micro-climates, etc.) and farmers’singularities (relations to nature), including how AKIS actors’ forms oforganization and intervention are challenged by these particularities;(ii) the role of AKIS actors in supporting the agroecological transition:how can farmers’ own discovery of their natural and technicalenvironment from new perspectives be facilitated? AKIS actors can beinstrumental in this respect; their interventions then become part of theflow of the farmer’s activities; (iii) transformations of work, in variousrespects relating to systemic representations of the activity: the“doing”, the knowledge applied, and the values and norms to whichsubjects refer are changed; and (iv) the production of agronomicknowledge and the ways in which it is disseminated are challenged. The prescriptive relationship of science and development towardsfarmers is likewise challenged. This review raises many questionswhich we put on the research agenda: does the agroecologicaltransition contribute to reorienting the development of farmers’activity? Is the agroecological transition conducive to the developmentof sustainable farm work? What transformations of AKIS actors’ workare needed to better support the agroecological transition?