Synthèse SAS-STRAT

1. Stéphane Baudé (Mutadis)
Paris, 26th March 2015
SAS STRAT
Sustainable Agriculture and Soil,
comparative study of STRATegies for
managing the integrated quality of
agricultural soils in different regions of
Europe

2. Partners
• AgroParisTech (FR)
• Boerenverstand (NL)
• Mutadis, coordinator (FR)
• Sol et Civilisation (FR)
• Université de Liège (B)

3. Objectives
• Explore the different qualities that constitute integrated
agricultural soil quality
• Describe regional governance approaches to improve the
integrated quality of agricultural soil in Belgium, France &
the Netherlands (case studies)
• Analyse the conditions for an integration of new soil
challenges in agricultural soil
• Establish a community of stakeholders and a first group of
researchers-experts involved in integrated soil quality
• Analyse with stakeholders the lessons learnt from the case
studies investigated
• Analyse the contribution of cooperative research
methodologies to address soil complexity, and provide
recommendations to sustainable management of soil quality

4. Method
• Describing strategies developed at a regional level
for a greater integration of soil uses and functions :
– 3 case studies (BE, FR, NL) with multidisciplinary &
cooperative methodology
• Analysing the conditions and means for such an
integration through an integration workshop (Paris,
17th -18th June 2012)
• Proposing recommendations to policy makers and
practitioners: final report & guidelines

5. French case: Regional association for soil
study and improvement (AREAS)
• Territory of Normandy (N-W of France) : cattle, cereals, milk …,
watershed of Austreberthe & Saffimbec
• Current soil management practices result in floods, soil erosion
and pollution
• AREAS : initiative started by
water managers and local
governments to improve soil
quality gathering farmers
organisations, local and regional
governments, water management
organisations
• Mission: reduce erosion and its
consequences by favouring
evolution of soil management,
farming & water management

6. Dutch case: scoring sustainable dairy
farming
Dairy co-operative
CONO cheese
(Beemster cheese)
550 dairy farmers
• CONO cooperates with Ben &
Jerry’s ice-cream company
(client) & University of
Wageningen to develop a
sustainability programme : “happy
cow, happy people, happy planet”
• This programme includes a soil
quality part, using a visual soil
quality assessment method
• CONO wants to include economic incentives (milk price
premium) based on sustainability scores (including soil quality score)
• Visual soil assessment as both a self-assessment method for farmers
and a part of the sustainability scoring system.

7. Belgian case: soil quality view of a
“conservation agriculture” network
collective dynamics of minimum/zero tillage
stitue une mission en soi) environ 400
exploitations agricoles wallonnes pratiquant les TCS (est considérée arbitrairement comme
« TCSiste » tout agriculteur cultivant sans labour au moins une culture autre que du froment
une question de gestion de repousses). La répartition des exploitations par commune, de
Figure 5.
Figure5 : répartition desexploitationspratiquant lesTCS BL Greenotec et
localisation desagriculteursmembresdel'association au 31/12/2009
Plusieurs raisons
upart liées à la
• Wallonia
• Greenotec network of farmers
involved in zero till farming
• Collective innovation &
learning process: new
practices around conservation
agriculture open space for new
meaning of soil
• Study of transition trajectories
(Transition Management
Theory)
• Variety of transition paths but
one essential commonality :
irreversible change in the
understanding of soils, from
soil-substrate to living soil

8. Lessons learnt - Overview
• Transversal analysis of the case studies brought
lessons on 3 key themes:
1. Taking complexity into account in soil quality
management
2. Sustainable management of soil quality as a
transition process in social-technical-economic
systems
3. Contribution of scientific and technical tools to
transition towards sustainable soil quality
management

9. 1. Taking complexity into account in soil quality
management
• Soil quality management is a complex issue:
– It integrates physical, chemical & biological qualities (intrinsic
qualities) and social & human qualities (linked to relationship of
people to soils).
– Farmers are the main manager of soil quality. However, a wide
range of actors influences directly or indirectly these practices
– Multiple uses and users are related to a given soil, including
active and explicit uses (e.g. food production) but also more
indirect or passive uses (e.g. runoffs prevention).
– Multiple scales and spaces where soil quality is at stake from
the farm to the global level. Agricultural sectors (e.g. dairy
production, wheat production…) are also relevant spaces and
governance frameworks that influence soil quality.

10. 1. Taking complexity into account in soil quality
management – integrated SQ management
• Integrated soil quality management refers to a double
integration:
– It refers to practices of soil quality management that take into
account a wide range of soil qualities (including the living
dimension of soils).
– It refers to a type of soil management that takes into account
multiple actors and multiple uses of soils relevant to them
• Integrated soil quality management can be considered as
strategies for managing the “total quality” of soils, by
addressing altogether 3 types of qualities:
– Intrinsic soil quality,
– Relationship of the different stakeholders to soil quality
– Relationships between the actors / soil quality management

11. 1. Taking complexity into account in soil quality
management – conditions for developing
integrated SQ management
• Gathering a variety of stakeholders around soil quality issues
may require that integrated soil quality management be
encompassed in the management of the total quality of a
broader object that is relevant and topical for all
stakeholders.
• Integrated soil quality management can be understood as a
process of collective definition of commonly relevant
framework for understanding and managing soil quality
in which the actors
– Identify together the broader strategic object recognised as a
common good by all actors
– Redefine together soil quality by incorporating more
dimensions, issues and stakes
– Manage the total quality of he common object (including SQ).

12. 1. Taking complexity into account in soil quality
management – a dynamics of co-evolution
• The system of actors in this process is not fixed:
there is a process of co-evolution
– between the various concerned actors
– between the understanding of the common strategic object
(and of soil quality in it) and of the system of actors that
manages it.
• Any entry point in soil quality management can be
relevant, insofar as the different concerned actors have
the capacity to reframe soil quality issues and connect
to other actors.

13. 2. Sustainable SQ management as a transition
process in social-technical-economic systems
with self-locking effects on current practices
• Transition as a dynamics between niches of innovation, social-
technical-economical regimes (majority practices, beliefs, system
of interdependencies in agriculture) and the broader social-
technical-economic landscape (macroeconomic, cultural and
macro-political environment) (Geels and Schot, 2007)
• Existence of strong social-technical-economic locks in the
regime of conventional agriculture
• Conversely, transition is helped by factors that disturb the
regime. These factors can originate
– In shifts in selection pressure from the landscape (e.g. change of
regulations, changes in society attitudes towards agriculture …)
– In changes within the regime (change in economic conditions,
technical changes, …)

14. 2. Sustainable soil quality management as a
transition process : fit & conform vs. stretch &
transform approaches
• Fit & conform approach (Dutch case): as innovations become
competitive under conventional regime terms, ‘soil quality
innovation’ developing competitiveness leads to its increasing
dissemination. This niche innovation develops in such a way that it
fits into and conforms to a relatively unchanged selection
environment (milk market).
• Stretch & transform approaches (French & Belgian case):
processes that re-structure mainstream selection environments in
ways favourable to the niche.
– France: attempted territorial construction of a strategic issue linking
runoff, erosion, and flooding to agricultural practices in a territorial
framework with all of its dimensions of interdependence
– Belgium: normative and cognitive break made in the way of thinking of
soil management turning the traditional humus regeneration model into
a new virtuous triangle of no ploughing, plant cover, and crop rotation.

15. 2. Sustainable soil quality management as a
transition process : conclusions
• Transition occurs when the pressure coming from the
landscape level and or the pressure from the micro/
niche level destabilises the regime, creating
opportunities for convergence between dynamics of
change on the niche, regime, and landscape level.
• However, change meets with very great resistance
from the regimes in place. This is linked in particular
to lock-in effects in agricultural sectors.
• Favouring transition can be made through adaptive or
transformative strategies, depending on the model of
collective action, its legitimacy, and its reflexivity.

16. 3. Contributions of scientific and technical tools
to transition towards soil quality management
– the Visual Soil Assessment (VSA) method
• A specific tool developed in the framework of the Dutch case
study: the Visual Soil Assessment (VSA) method
• VSA assesses and scores several properties for soil quality (e.g.
presence of earthworms, soil structure and root pattern). It
allows the farmers to easily identify soil properties that need to
be improved and optimize sustainable soil management.
• VSA is both scientifically sound and able to be reached
directly by the farmers, without any technical intermediary
• The VSA score was not only a decision support tool for
farmers, it is a tool for mutual understanding of soil quality.
It also created a new impulse for the debate about the
integrated management of the soil among different
stakeholders.

17. 3. A specific role of “intermediary objects” for
facilitating cooperation within a heterogeneous
network of actors
• VSA as a particular example of “intermediary
objects” (Vinck and Jeantet 1995) that help structuring
and developing interactions between actors of different
nature in order to enable an integrated assessment of
many dimensions of soil quality.
• This intermediation function is fulfilled simultaneously in at
least two ways:
– they constitute an intermediary between the soils and an
heterogeneous system of actors that is concerned by SQ;
– they constitute an intermediary between actors of different
nature, insofar as they can be easily understood and
interpreted in each actor’s own framework of understanding and
action and facilitate the evolution of each actor’s understanding
of soil quality issues

18. 3. A renewed role of scientific & technical
actors: technical mediation
• The case studies show a specific role of scientific or expert
actors playing a role of translation and mediation by facilitating
the access of non-expert actors to scientific knowledge &
technical capacities.
• They contribute to transformation of soil quality management by:
– Raising awareness of soil quality issues at individual level,
– Supporting collective learning process,
– Facilitating multi-stakeholder discussion around a shared reality,
– Facilitating cultural change (e.g. move towards a view of living soils),
– Providing technical tools that play a role of intermediary objects that
can facilitate a recomposition of the understanding of soil issues and
enable an integrated assessment of many dimensions of soil quality
• This role of technical mediation is of technical and of social
nature. It requires technical skills and social skills of facilitation.

19. Transition towards integrated soil quality managment can be
facilitated by:
• Fostering multi-stakeholder and multi-level interaction processes
that will gradually modify the understanding and actions of the various
actors, favour the emergence of a common strategies and produce
elements of knowledge & evaluation in the perspective of the
development of public policies
• Designing enabling public policies for soil quality that take into
account the notion of path of changes in agriculture, adopt a dynamic
vision of soil quality, support actors engged in transition, and favour
territorialisation of soil quality policies through some level of
subsidiarity.
• Encouraging a collective learning process among farmers
• Developing the contribution of research, expertise & extension
services in a perspective of technical mediation
Recommendations

20. Thank you for your attention
Contact person:
Stéphane Baudé (Mutadis)
stephane.baude@mutadis.fr
+33 1 48 01 88 72