Introduction
Innovation Processes in Agro-Ecological Transitions of Developing Countries
In this book, the core problem concerns the interactions between changes in innovation models, the institutional condition of production system greening and the social consequences. Six innovation processes are, analyzed in the agricultures of Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Haiti, Madagascar and Senegal, respectively. Chapter 7 analyzes the extent to which the lack of full agricultural policy explains the failure of technology transfer based on capital intensification. These situations converge to demonstrate that collaborative innovation models are particularly useful for development, as they adapt the studied processes to local needs. These models imply more commitment from public policy innovation in the agricultural sector, mainly food, in order to regulate the market and encourage funding of infrastructure and investment in production.
I.1. Introduction
The increase in global development inequalities, the questions raised due to the acceleration of climate change, new food crises and technical transitions in the fields of digital computing, energy, biotechnology, etc., all converge for a technological paradigm shift in the agricultural and food sector. The recognition of this in international political fora (World Bank, UNESCO, OECD, FAO, etc.) raises controversy about the economic and social model that it mobilizes and strengthens.
The first model is based on the industrialization of production through the standardization of inputs that are used to produce agricultural and food goods. This is predominantly in OECD countries. It is partly due to technical progress in the postwar era in the fields of chemistry, motorization, genetics, etc. It is based on the search for economies of scale, on the concentration and specialization of farms and land, and is often associated with a modernist vision of capital intensification. It is mainly based on new techniques that implement scientific progress through the world's agro-chemical and agrifood companies. It requires agricultural policies that regulate market instabilities and the conditions for financing investment in production, which enable capital intensification [BOU 17]. In other words, within agriculture, it promotes the "developmentalist" myth that southern countries are catching up because of exogenous industry and technology transfers [COU 86]. Ultimately, it "artificializes" agriculture by "disembodying" it from its relationship with the land, climate and work (human and animal): hydroponics or the decerebration of animals. This model is highly efficient in terms of productivity or return on investment and underpins an innovation trajectory that is polarized by the intensification of production (more inputs and capital to replace labor and land). The emancipation of production from the natural and social ecosystem reduces the diversity of these ecosystems to a constraint that must be homogenized [VAN 09]. Huge fires in the dried-out bogs of Sumatra (Asia) producing acacia for the paper industry or even the dehumanization process of Chaco (South America) to produce soya are increasingly common place.
A second economic model [SOU 14] underpins an agriculture that is based on family production methods. It still dominates agriculture in developing countries and is based on social structures of production, which are considered to be diverse in terms of their historical roots. It challenges and calls upon the capacities of science and technology to accompany this diversity, which is a resource for innovation. This intensification, which is sometimes described as an ecological one [GRI 02], prioritizes the exploitation potential of natural and social ecosystems by hybridizing scientific research knowledge and knowledge bases of localized rural societies. Ultimately, this model refers to permaculture or other forms of organic farming that are based on the self-production of inputs.
These two "stylized" models coexist in the differing agrarian realities in the North and the South. They compete for resources: land, water, labor, knowledge, finance or in securing support for public policies for innovation and research. In some situations, these models are complementary. Thus, they converge in recognizing the inadequacy of the diffusionist linear innovation model for the conception of invention through scientific research and its transfer from the laboratory to global agriculture [MEY 16]. This convergence is reflected in the growing importance of a system-wide reference framework for innovation analysis in innovation and research policies, which can alternatively be mobilized to improve the use of biotechnologies or to support innovation derived from the tacit knowledge of rural societies [TOU 15].
This special book takes a look at different innovation situations. The connections highlight how the transition from a linear diffusionist model to a systemic collaborative model intensifies agricultural production in a sustainable manner. The trajectories of agricultural innovations mentioned in the first five chapters are mainly based on improved achievement of ecological potentialities in the mobilization of environmental resources (human and non-human) due to the networking between innovation stakeholders. They show that it is possible to improve food security through ecological intensification and capacity-building for agricultural innovation in developing countries. Chapter 6 argues in favor of strengthening the capital intensification of production. It analyzes how the incompleteness of agricultural policies, which is linked to the disengagement of states in regulating product markets and making financial investments, explains current technological inertia in the considered context.
I.2. The determinants of ecological intensification
In Burkina Faso, based on the technological promises of reducing pesticides through the diffusion of Genetically Modified Organism (GMOs) by an agro-chemical firm, Eveline Compaoré Sawadogo (Chapter 2) shows how the lobbies linked to globalized investments in GMOs create institutional conditions for the extension of Bt cotton. She analyzes how emancipating the precautionary principles and not taking into account stakeholders' expectations contributes to the failure of the innovation process. She questions the negative social consequences of such a trajectory of Bt cotton.
Looking at the development conditions for Jatropha cultivation to produce energy in Burkina Faso, Salif Derra and Ludovic Temple (Chapter 3) extend this questioning. They show how structuring research and entrepreneurial investments in the bioenergy sector instigates technological dynamics in response to needs defined by industrial countries. However, they underline how it can also feed a variety of possible technological models, some of which can meet localized needs (under certain conditions).
In Madagascar, Eric Penot et al. (Chapter 4) question how the diffusionist model of a new agro-ecological cropping system (SCV) reinforces its effectiveness through a development project by integrating farmers' participation into the evaluation and experimentation mechanisms. However, the results point to low adoption rates and partial adoption mechanisms of these techniques. They question the future sustainability of these adoptions in terms of their ability to integrate the complexity of institutional and organizational variables that, beyond individual scales, structure the coordination of collective community or professional action.
In Côte d'Ivoire, Euphrasie Angbo-Kouakou et al. (Chapter 1) show how a "South-South" technology transfer based on new disease-resistant plantain banana hybrids (which potentially reduce pesticide use) mobilizes participatory multi-stakeholder assessment schemes. These schemes solidify a collaborative innovation model. They generate collective adaptations of the relationships between research and farmers. These experimental platforms adapt the technology transfer offer to the needs of different stakeholders in the localized value chains.
In Senegal, on the topic of market gardening, Patrick Dugué et al., (Chapter 6) show how spatial proximity between different agro-industrial and family production methods can lead to innovation processes for small producers. In the observed situation, they favor the pooling of experimental and learning capacities, which allows for the adoption of new industrial innovations (thermal or electric pumps) for drip irrigation. This adoption model is coupled with other innovation processes that are more based on natural and cognitive local resources, for example the fertilization of crops or optimal valorization of land (crop associations). The hybridization of knowledge bases between professional organizations, civil society (NGOs with an organic farming model), businesses and research are at the root of these innovation mechanisms, combining different technical artefacts with local knowledge.
In Haiti, James Boyer and Ludovic Temple (Chapter 5) analyze how a linear diffusionist innovation model has been transformed into an open and collaborative model of long-term production of yams. They highlight how this transformation needs to be created and strengthened through positive synergies between adoption mechanisms, the autonomous greening of the innovation process, and the socioeconomic impacts at a macroeconomic level.
Jean-Marc Boussard (Chapter 7) emphasizes the need to increase the availability and...
