Making Agriculture Sustainable: Farmers’ Networking and Institutional Strategies in France

This title has been given to a three year project in which researchers from France, Spain, Latvia, Denmark and the Netherlands worked together to explore the role of farmers' networking and institutional strategies in the dissemination of sustainable agriculture. The general aim of the project was to analyse the barriers to the implementation of environmentally sound practices in European agriculture and to identify collective strategies to be strengthened, so that farmers and farmers' groups can follow an accelerated implementation. In the three year duration of the project, three tasks were performed: • Description and comparison of the current implementation of sustainable agriculture in Europe. • Identification of the barriers and driving forces of the unequal dissemination of sustainable agriculture in Europe. • Identification of the ways to improve the dissemination process, resulting amongst others in policy implications and recommendations 2 – The policy framework In France, European regulations about agri-environment and rural development have opened the agricultural policy community to new actors : local and regional authorities, environmentalist associations. Farmers participate more and more in the environment management programs. This evolution will probably be strengthened by the new programmatic Law for French Agriculture, that will implement Farm territorial contracts between the farmers and the State, with possible positive impact on environment, employment and food quality. Farm territorial contracts, as the agri-environment measures, are still based on a voluntary principle and, partly, on a land use approach. They do not engage obligatory changes on the whole farm systems. Results depend on the quality of negotiations and relationships between extension services, associations and farmers to build common diagnosis and objectives, to develop information and training sessions. However, policy measures related to sustainable agriculture often concern farmers at an individual level : they are rarely involved collectively in the decision making process, only professional leaders are consulted. Farmers' collective initiatives for sustainable agriculture do exist in France. The aim of MAS project is to identify and describe those initiatives and to propose improvements to develop their efficiency and to include them in the public policies. 3 – Five farmers' collective initiatives in France have been observed and analysed. Description of GEL de Louverné (Mayenne) This group of farmers is an old one, created at the beginning of the 70's. It joins exclusively milk producers living in the same area (Northern Mayenne). Some of them are orgnic farmers or converters to organic farming, others …