Participatory Research in Ecology for Agroecological Transitions: A Case Study in Viticulture

Résumé :

Participatory ecological research in agricultural contexts is on the rise. Developing
collaboration between farmers and ecology researchers is expected to both foster the acquisition
of fundamental knowledge, and guide farmers towards the adoption of ecological practices
through the co-construction of relevant expertise. Yet the impacts of these participatory
approaches on farmers’ practices are still poorly characterized. In this paper, we tackle this
issue by considering as a case study a participatory research project in viticulture (EcoVitiSol®)
conducted in 2022-2023 in the Côtes-de-Provence AOC vineyards (France). EcoVitiSol®
(EVS) engaged winegrowers in a participatory research approach aiming to assess the
relationships between agronomic practices and soil microbiological quality. Participant
winegrowers entered into close collaboration with ecology researchers both to collect data, and
to interpret global and individual soil health diagnoses. Following a pragmatic sociology
approach, we conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with participant winegrowers in order
to understand how their engagement in EVS had impacted their practices, knowledge, and
professional networks. We found that the impacts of EVS on agronomic change is independant
of the value of the diagnosis, and depends primarily on contextual factors: winegrowers (plan
to) modify their practices after their engagement in the EVS protocol only if their current
technical itinerary is not well stabilized, and if they do not face strong limiting environmental
constraints. We also show that winegrowers interpret their individual EVS diagnosis on the
basis of what we characterize as their formal, experiential and ethical knowledge. We
furthermore suggest that, beyond the scientific results they provide, participatory research
projects in ecology are valuable in that they foster peer group discussions. These results raise
broader questions on the role of ecological expertise in fostering famers’ adoption of
environmentally sustainable practices, by deciphering how this expertise interferes with
specific agronomic situations and the different forms of knowledge held by farmers.