the territory
Southern Ardèche has been for a few decades an attractive region (both to new-comers and tourists), with a population that increased in the last 20 years after more than a century of rural depopulation.
The local agriculture is very diversified although wine and chestnut dominate in some areas. There are a diversity of initiatives, both from the civil society and farmers’ networks around short food circuits, seed exchange, mutual help etc. The first collective processing units and farmers shops emerged already in the 1980s. Farmers markets are also very common even in very small villages. More recently, some initiatives have started to focus on health and social issues in a region were the average level of poverty is higher than average. However, the effects of climate change threaten many agricultural productions and there are some trends to concentration (in the livestock sector) and specialisation (in the vineyard) while many new comers have difficulties in finding land to develop small farms.
While agrifood transition is at the forefront of many local programs and policies, the main stake is today to consider this transition in a just and inclusive way.
.
Case study referee
Claire Lamine (INRAE)
Other participants
Pedro Lopez-Merino (INRAE)
Danièle Magda (INRAE)
Richard Bonin (PNRMA)
Karine Nunes (PNRMA/INRAE)
claire.lamine[at]inrae.fr
Territorial food system
Type of region : Rural with small towns and mountainous deserted areas; diverse landscapes
Approximate size and population
130,000 inhabitants, about 2,500 km2 ; around 50 inhabitants/km2
Increasing population (attractiveness to both young people and retired ones) ; very heterogeneous density.
Type of agriculture
Average farm size 27ha (55ha in France).
Agrifood sector at large is a key economic sector.
Very diverse agriculture with a few specialised productions (fruit, wine), strong presence of quality signs/chains (wine, chestnut).
Heterogeneous trends: diversification and specialisation; concentration and increase in small farms
Short circuits (and anteriority)
36 % of farms concernerd by shorts circuits in Ardèche département.
Very present and diverse (many producers shops & farmers markets), increasing number of initiatives ; long history (1990s)
Main social issues
Lowest average household income in the region.
Rural poverty (often invisibilised), lack of public services.
Presence of agroecologial systems
Organic agriculture = around 20%.
Extensive livestock (pasture fed) and chestnut practices, strong presence of peasant and agroecological networks.
Specific agri-food system dynamics and initiatives (and anteriority)
Small/middle size processors (since long) ; social access and health initiatives (more recent) ; food and environmental education networks.
Agrifood transition
Main stakes for the transition : Climate change / Quality of products / Social justice (both convergent and competing stakes)
Key obstacles to AE transition
Lack of political will, lack of intersectoriality (although improving)
Leading actors in the transition
Local authorities, Farmers groups, chamber of agriculture, etc.
Institutionalisation of the agrifood transition
Various ongoing projects linked to an institutional favourable context (on food strategies and ecological transition)
Actors excluded from projects
Marginalised publics as such (although represented by CSOs/public services)
References (studies) and contacts
https://www.assiette-territoire.com/ (Action research project and network)
Key initiatives
3 innovative initiatives
Goutez l’Ardèche brand for local products
Created in 1994, today on 400 products, not very demanding in ecological terms but generates a larger dynamics, with a wide network and further innovation such as ”Etapes savoureuses”
Stolons
Organic products “drive” markets organised by the local organic producers organisation
Agrialimen’terre
Project based on a network of local farmers and pedagogical interventions in local schools about local agriculture, food and health
Our approach
In Southern Ardèche, a local action research project, l’Assiette et le Territoire, has been launched in 2019 to gather diverse organisations and local actors in a collective reflexion about past, current and future transition pathways. An action research collective of around 25 persons (researchers and local actors), has been created and has carried out a series of analyses (included that of the trajectory) and focused actions and organised a local forum which gathered more than 100 persones in september 2021. Co-leaded by Inrae and the PNR des Monts d’Ardèche, both part of ATTER, the action research dynamics is going on with a PhD work starting in July 2022 and the creation of local food council in 2022 based on this previous experience.
Trajectory
Method
The analysis of the trajectory relied on longitudinal work (diverse studies) achieved in the region over a 15y period, documentary analysis, and workshops held over around one year with two groups, an action research collective of around 25 persons (researchers and local actors), comparable to a local food council and intended to remain, and a more restricted group of 9 persons, that worked specifically on the trajectory during this period. The identification of the key programs and initiatives was done by the larger group (detailed trajectory), and its formalisation as well as the interpretative work was carried out by the smaller trajectory group with regular interactions with the larger group.
Detailed timeline
The detailed timeline (1980-2020) shows key elements of the global context (health crises, covid, etc.), public policies (top of the figure) and initiatives launched by diverse organisations and networks involved in agricultural development, rural development, civil society (bottom of the figure), that have plaid a significant role in the transformation of the agri-food system over these 4 decades.
On this territory, regional policies (strong in terms of support to territorial projects and associations) and European ones (Leader programme) have had a major impact, and among the diverse local authorities, the Natural Regional Park created in 2001 has played an important role first on emblematic productions (the chestnut) then more broadly on the agri-food transition.
Initiatives emanating from agricultural organizations were numerous all along the decades especially for the promotion and marketing of local products (geographical indications, Goutez l’Ardèche brand, more recently the collecting and marketing platform Ardèche and Saison). As early as from the 1980s on, “alternative” farmers networks created collective operational tools (processing workshops, collective producers shops) and in the 1990s, got structured into networks linked to organic agriculture, small scale farming and rural development. The type of initiatives change over time, with for example organic “drive in shops” more recently, as well as a focus on support for agricultural installation (new farmers). Various local associations linked to ecological issues and environmental and food education have also developed, especially in recent years, around education, health and social inclusion. Finally, the recent period has seen more multi-actor initiatives carried out in particular by local authorities in the broader context of the institutionalization of the “food transition” in France.
Interpretative figure
This interpretative figure shows the recomposition of the dynamics at work in the territorial agri-food system throughout four major periods since the middle of the 19th century, with its major tipping points.Until the 1950s/60s, the agri-food system was diversified, mainly oriented towards local markets and “by nature” relatively ecological. Agricultural systems combine crops and livestock, while self-consumption and local exchanges remained high.From the 1960s to the beginning of the 1990s, there was a strong process of specialization/intensification, which is refered to in this region as the “golden age” of fruit production. The agri-food system got increasingly “pulled” by mass distribution. However, the arrival of new rural populations in the 1970s and 1980s and the emergence of many initiatives focused on local products valorisation somewhat mitigated the effects of agricultural modernization, compared to other territories.From 1995 to the early 2010s, there was a proliferation of initiatives around quality and local food, strongly supported by territorial policies, along with the affirmation of the issue of multi-functionality.Finally, since around 2015, the rise of the environmental, climate, health and social inclusion issues has led to intense debates around the necessary reconfiguration of the agri-food system.
Systemic representation of the 4 periods
The interpretation of the trajectory relied on a systemic perspective aimed at identifying the changes in power configurations within the territorial food system. This systemic perspective was applied at the scale of the whole territorial food system and led to characterize each period through the interactions that characterize the power configurations in this given period in contrast to other periods (power exerted by a component on another one, eg. retailers and intermediaries on farmers, power reciprocally exerted by two components on one another, eg.
Farmers on public policies; alliances of two components, eg. Farmers and civil society). The systemic perspective was also applied at the scale of key initiatives or programs. Participants from the small trajectory group suggested some focuses on key initiatives or programs with the aim to identify which interactions and power configurations were at stake in these initiatives, how they were transformed or on the contrary may have impeded the transition.
