Agencing an innovative territorial trade scheme between crop and livestock farming: the contributions of the sociology o
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Agencing an innovative territorial trade scheme between crop and livestock farming: the contributions of the sociology of market agencements to alternative agri‑food network analysis Ronan Le Velly1 · Marc Moraine1 Accepted: 18 February 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The aim of this article is to show the relevance of the sociology of market agencements (an offshoot of actor–network theory) for studying the creation of alternative agri-food networks. The authors start with their finding that most research into alternative agri-food networks takes a strictly informative, cursory look at the conditions under which these networks are gradually created. They then explain how the sociology of market agencements analyzes the construction of innovative markets and how it can be used in agri-food studies. The relevance of this theoretical frame is shown based on an experiment aimed at creating a local trade scheme between manure from livestock farms and alfalfa grown by grain farmers. By using the concepts of the sociology of market agencements, the authors reveal the operations that are required to create an alternative agri-food network and underscore the difficulties that attend each one of these operations. This enables them to see the phenomena of lock-ins and sociotechnical transition in a new light. Keywords Actor–network theory · Agroecology · Alternative agri-food networks · Crop-livestock integration · Marketization · Innovation Abbreviations ANT Actor-Network Theory FNAB Fédération Nationale de l’Agriculture Biologique (French National Federation of Organic Agriculture) GAB Groupement d’Agriculture Biologique (Organic Agriculture Group) INRA Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (French National Institute of Agricultural Research
* Ronan Le Velly [email protected] Marc Moraine [email protected] 1
UMR Innovation, Univ. Montpellier, Cirad, INRAE, Montpellier SupAgro, 2 place Viala, 34060 Montpellier, France
Introduction Research into alternative agri-food networks, which began in the late 1990s, now makes up a substantial body of work in the field of rural studies (Goodman et al. 2012). This research has focused since its beginnings on the “alternativeness” of initiatives such as organic farming, fair trade, local produce, and short food supply chains. The initial aims of such research were to underscore the fact that these approaches could be answers to the many injustices in the dominant agri-food system (Kloppenburg et al. 1996; Renard 1999) and lay the foundations for a new rural development model (van der Ploeg et al. 2000; Renting et al. 2003). The researchers then delved deeper and went farther afield by looking at the phenomena of hybridization (Ilbery and Maye 2005) and conventionalization (Guthman 2004). So, alternative agri-food networks were no longer seen as separate worlds functioning totally independently and differently from conventional networks. Instead, their practices were acknowledged to be partly alternative and partly conventional (Hinrichs 2003; Kneafse
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