Given the huge challenges agriculture has to face, both in Northern and Southern countries, a radical change in farming practices towards agroecology is required. Most scientific literature on the design of new farming systems describes de novo approaches, which focus on disruption and novelty, without any concern for the way to move from the current system to the innovative one. In this study, we highlight, for the first time, the particular traits of what we will call the step-by-step design approach. In this aim, we disentangled 9 case studies of practice change in commercial or experimental farms through the lens of theoretical frameworks derived from three scientific fields: design sciences, farming system research, and change pathways analysis. From data collected in each case study, and collective interactions among the authors of this paper, we identified commonalities across cases, in the aim to produce guidelines for actors willing to engage, characterize or support such design processes in the future. We thus show that step-by-step design appears as (i) a situated design process fueled by action, (ii) structured by iterative loops diagnosis – exploration – implementation – assessment, fostered by learning, (iii) progressively shaping a desirable unknown, (iv) supported by specific tools, and (v) intertwining individual and collective dimensions. This approach is well adapted to manage the agroecological transition: by its temporality, by its capacity to overcome knowledge gaps through learning, by its contribution to farmers' empowerment, and by its capacity to tailor solutions to local specificities. By doing so, it allows the progressive implementation of profound systemic changes. Finally, this article provides benchmarks to encourage increased Research & Development investment in this type of approach, contributing to open innovation, to enhance the agroecological transition.

On utilise le terme « agronome » de manière générique, sachant qu'ils occupent différents métiers (agriculteurs, conseillers agricoles, animateurs d'aires d'alimentation de captage, enseignants, chercheurs, apprenants, acteurs institutionnels), chacun avec des objectifs, des résultats attendus au champ, des savoirs et savoir-faire spécifiques.

CONTEXT: In order to design cropping systems reconciling crop production, biodiversity and reduced herbicide use, we organised participatory workshops with farmers in the Champagne region (North-Eastern France). OBJECTIVE: The main issues of the study were to develop and implement a methodology for participatory workshop-based cropping-system design, combining expert knowledge and models, in the particular case of agroecological weed management. METHODS: Methods used in this study combined cropping-system prototyping by farmers, expert opinion and models. In a first meeting, farmers determined their objectives and constraints, and chose a reference system from one of their farms (oilseed rape/winter wheat/winter wheat/spring barley heavily infested by autumnal grass weeds). In a second meeting, two sets of prototypes were designed by two separate groups, using the Mission Ecophyt'eau (R) tool as support. The reference and the prototypes were evaluated in terms of (1) technical feasibility from farmers' and scientists' expertise, (2) weed harmfulness for crop production and weed contribution to biodiversity with FLORSYS which simulates crop and weed growth and reproduction in cropping systems at a daily time step over several years, and (3) economic, social and environmental sustainability with the DEXiPM model. Steps 2 and 3 were carried out after the meeting. At a third meeting, these results were presented to the farmers who continued improving the prototypes, using the DECIFLORSYS model which includes decision trees to guide farmers during cropping-system design and a fast calculator estimating weed harmfulness and biodiversity of cropping-system prototypes. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Both prototypes presented increased crop diversification, introducing legumes and other broad-leaved crops, crop mixtures and cover crops. Both prototypes reduced weed harmfulness for crop production (yield loss, harvest contamination, field infestation) and herbicide use intensity (approx. -60%) compared to the reference system. The best solution was a suboption of prototype B replacing most of the herbicides by mechanical weeding, dividing yield loss by nearly two compared to the reference and improving biodiversity by 5-10%. The workshop participants appreciated the knowledge on agroecosystem functioning and the complementarity of models. DECIFLORSYS allowed a direct evaluation during workshops. FLORSYS produced a detailed diagnosis of the technical and meteorological causes of the cropping systems' performance. DEXiPM assessed working times and economic viability of the prototypes. SIGNIFICANCE: Following the workshops, some participants invested in new tools for mechanical weeding and introduced more spring crops into their rotations.

Addressing the issues that agriculture is currently facing requires disruptive innovations, which may be stimulated through a process of innovative design, enhancing exploration in specific situations. In the aim to equip this process, several researchers implemented 'design workshops'. Yet, the literature poorly describes the way to organize, implement and capitalize design workshops, in the view to achieve their objectives. We conducted a comprehensive cross-analysis of 12 case studies of design workshops, informed both by data on the preparation, course and outputs of the workshops, and by collective interactions among the workshop managers. Steered by theoretical elements from design science, we identified similarities and divergences across cases, and derived methodological lessons concerning preparation, implementation, and follow-up for future design workshops. Our analysis provides new insights on the key steps for the management of design workshops: key elements to define and share an ambitious but realistic design target were highlighted; the choice of actors participating in the design workshops appeared as a crucial step in the preparation of all the workshops; the initial knowledge basis shared before the exploration had a determinant role on the design process; we identified the need to adapt, to a diversity of agricultural situations, the sequencing, the facilitation of design workshops, and the width of exploration; means to manage, during the design process, the systemic nature of most agricultural innovations were specified; and new criteria, consistent with the diversity of the objectives, were proposed to assess the success of a design workshop. Finally, our research has shown that design workshops promote collective creativity in agriculture, and feed open innovation processes.

Over the last few years, an increasing number of agricultural R&D actors have sought to discover and get to know farmers' practices that they consider as innovative, unconventional, or promising. We refer to these approaches, all of which aim to support the design of farming systems, as 'farmer innovation tracking'. There is still a lack of knowledge, however, about the specificities of the approaches adopted to track innovations and how they contribute to design processes. To explore these questions, we studied 14 initiatives in France led by actors from different R&D networks. We analysed the data collected using agronomy and design science concepts. Three outcomes emerge from this work. (1) We shed light on the common features of innovation tracking. We outline five stages that structure all the approaches: formulating an innovation tracking project, unearthing innovations, learning about them, analysing them, and generating agronomic content. (2) We characterize six contributions of farmer innovation tracking to design processes: giving rise to creative anomalies, shedding light on systemic mechanisms to fuel design processes on other farms, uncovering research questions, stimulating design in orphan fields of innovation, circulating innovation concepts, and connecting farmer-designers with each other. (3) Finally, we highlight three tracking strategies: the targeted tracking of proven practices, the targeted tracking of innovations under development, and the exploratory tracking of proven practices. This article is the first to propose a theorization of the farmer innovation tracking approaches, thus enriching the agronomic foundations supporting farming system design. The purpose of our paper is not to provide a turnkey method, but to highlight concepts, mechanisms, and points of reference for actors who might wish to develop farmer innovation tracking in different contexts in the future. By revealing their contributions to design processes, this article seeks to contribute to the institutionalization of innovation tracking.

Farm advice in support of changes in crop management is associated with a range of approaches and methods that mobilize knowledge. Three ways of producing and mobilizing knowledge on cropping systems are presented here: a decision-making framework to communicate on and promote successful innovations, a mind map built to collect and capitalize on knowledge shared during design activities, and a dashboard that gather field observations in a summary format and provides follow-up information for the changes of the practices in the course of their implementation. These three approaches have in common a practical rationale designed to bring together the biological and technical knowledge of the agronomist and the decision-oriented knowledge of the farmer who leads field operations. Their use is considered in different activities. Finally, the path to produce these knowledge is first described and analyzed, and then the efficiency of these forms of knowledge mobilization is discussed with the example of a drinking water catchment. a connaissance des pratiques agricoles gagne en profondeur quand celles-ci sont situées non seulement dans le temps court, mais aussi dans le temps rond du calendrier agricole et dans le temps long de l’histoire de l’exploitation agricole (Landais, Deffontaines, Benoît, 1988). Elle est enrichie par la connaissance du modèle d’action de l’agriculteur (Cerf et Sebillotte, 1988) et notamment de son modèle décisionnel (Le Gal et al., 2008) qui rend compte des décisions tactiques et stratégiques prises en amont des interventions culturales. Dans sa dimension stratégique, analyser la logique d’un agriculteur dans ses champs consiste à identifier ses motivations et les résultats qu’il attend de telle ou telle fonction de son système (pour quoi il fait), ainsi que les pratiques qu’il met en œuvre pour y parvenir (comment il fait) (Reau et al., 2015). Analyser les fonctions attendues par l’agriculteur (pour quoi il fait) permet de compléter le diagnostic en éclairant ses choix et sa propension au changement, au-delà de l’observation des pratiques et de leurs combinaisons dans les champs cultivés (comment il fait). La logique décisionnelle permet ainsi de décrire comment un agriculteur choisit et combine ses pratiques mais aussi pourquoi il est susceptible de changer ses pratiques. Les résultats obtenus à l’issue de la mise en œuvre des pratiques dans le champ cultivé peuvent correspondre aux résultats attendus. Dans ce cas, l’agriculteur qui est satisfait parce que son champ cultivé a réussi va probablement reconduire cette même logique l’année suivante et rester dans cette routine, au sens de Cerf et Sebillotte (1997). Par contre, si les résultats ne sont pas à la hauteur de ce qui est attendu, l’agriculteur qui n’est pas satisfait va être motivé pour changer afin de ne pas rester en situation d’échec l’année suivante. Comment rendre compte des pratiques agricoles ayant fait leur preuve ? Comment peut-on formaliser et utiliser cette connaissance des logiques des agriculteurs pour transmettre ou témoigner devant d’autres personnes d’une logique qui a réussi, et aussi pour accompagner dans le changement des agriculteurs insatisfaits des résultats qu’ils obtiennent ? Et comment utiliser cette ressource afin de contribuer à l’innovation dans les exploitations agricoles ? Ce sont les questions que se sont posées plusieurs agronomes du champ cultivé investis dans la mise au point de systèmes de culture innovants. Les savoirs pour transmettre des logiques réussies ou changer de pratiques Trois activités différentes de production et de mobilisation de savoirs agronomiques sont analysées ici. Une activité de valorisation de « réussites » consiste à transmettre ou à inspirer en donnant à voir des logiques originales d’économie en produits phytopharmaceutiques et réussies du point de vue de l’agriculteur qui les a mises en œuvre. L

Producing biofuels from crops is controversial due to environmental issues and to food security threats linked with the dedication of land to energy crops rather than to food production. The 2009 European Renewable Energy Directive defined the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as an essential requirement for biofuels. Whatever their specific lifespans, energy crops have short- and long-term effects on the following crops, thus requiring assessment at cropping system level, which is rarely done in the literature. This study aimed at designing and assessing cropping system prototypes (CSP) that include energy crops and food/feed crops in Bourgogne (France), before being implemented in the field (i.e. ex ante). CSP were first designed, using a prototyping approach involving scientists and farm advisors, and then ex ante assessed, using indicators covering the environment, energy, economic and food issues. They were compared with two cropping systems based on food/feed crops. Lastly, we analyzed the sensitivity of the CSP profitability to several scenarios of crop yields and prices (i.e. grain and forage prices for food and feed crops respectively). CSP including Miscanthus x giganteus performed better in terms of GHG emissions, energy costs, nitrate losses and pesticide use than CSP that include only annual crops requiring more inputs, but achieved lower profitability and food production capacity. The cropping systems including only food/feed crops frequently achieved higher economic outcomes and food production capacity. Lastly, CSP combining pluriannual or annual energy crops and annual food/feed crops showed satisfactory trade-offs among environmental impacts and food production capacity.

This article reports on the long-term involvement of research agronomists in a design process of agricultural systems in a water catchment area. While agriculture is facing increasing challenges to meet current societal expectations, several studies in agronomy have focused on the design processes that allow farmers to change their agricultural systems. Most of these processes have been dedicated to designing target agricultural systems but, more recently, several studies have acknowledged that agro-ecological practices replace farmers as the actual designers of their own production systems. In this context, how can agronomists support such design processes? How does a better understanding of these processes challenge the inputs that research agronomists can propose, to support them? We contribute to answering these questions by reviewing a case study of a design process supported and analyzed by research agronomists over several years. This case illustrates that the design of agricultural systems is a process that exceeds invention: the implementation of the initial design solutions produces information that should be used to review those same solutions, in order to reach the design goal. The case study shows that the design process depends on a tension between the exploration of an ambitious desirable future and its actual implementation. To foster dialogue between “desirable” and “actual”, we show how the researchers involved in this case provided a range of inputs that supported typical design activities (grounding, fostering design reasoning, reinterpreting this reasoning, and design strategy throughout the process), thus opening new avenues of research in agronomy.

Le plan national Ecophyto, lancé en 2008 par le gouvernement français, qui visait une réduction de l’usage des pesticides de 50 % en dix ans, « si possible », est un échec : en effet, au cours des cinq premières années de son application, la consommation de ces produits a augmenté. Ce constat a conduit les pouvoirs publics à annoncer un plan Ecophyto 2, en cours de mise en place. Pour les auteurs de cet article (agronomes et sociologues), l’échec était prévisible, au vu des caractéristiques des actions mises en place. Ils le montrent par l’analyse de deux actions phares du plan (le Bulletin de santé du végétal, base de l’information diffusée pour évaluer en temps réel les risques de bioagresseurs, et le réseau DEPHY de fermes de démonstration, conçu pour expérimenter et déployer des techniques économes en produits phytosanitaires), et l’analyse de l’usage fait des indicateurs de suivi du plan. Mais l’échec est imputable, plus encore peut-être, au fait que les actions n’ont ciblé que les agriculteurs et leurs conseillers, sans tenir compte des effets de « verrouillage sociotechnique », c’est-à-dire des interdépendances qui relient l’ensemble des acteurs économiques engagés dans la logique de systèmes agricoles pour lesquels les pesticides jouent un rôle de pivot. Le plan Ecophyto a cependant envoyé un signal symbolique fort, qui peut être déterminant à moyen et long termes : les pouvoirs publics annoncent clairement la fin de l’usage massif des pesticides en agriculture.

New agricultural systems are required to satisfy societal expectations such as higher quantity and quality of agricultural products, reducing environmental impacts, and more jobs. However, identifying and implementing more suitable agricultural systems is difficult due to conflicting objectives and to the wide diversity of scientific disciplines required to solve agricultural issues. Therefore, designing models to assess the sustainability of agricultural systems requires multi-criteria decision aid methods. The French agronomist community has recently developed 11 hierarchical and qualitative models to assess sustainability using the DEXi decision aid software. Here, we give guidelines to help designers to build their own specific models. First, we present the principles and applications of the DEXi software. Then, we provide guidance on the following steps of model designing: (1) initial analysis and planning of the design process, (2) selection and hierarchy of sustainability criteria, (3) indicator selection and building, (4) parameterization, (5) evaluation, and (6) model dissemination and uses. We then discuss advantages and drawbacks of this kind of modeling formalism, the role of a participatory approach, and the main properties to consider during the design process.

Addressing the issue of agricultural pollution in water protection areas (WPA) requires assessing the impact of agricultural activities at regional scales. However, current water quality modeling studies often neglect the agronomic concept of a cropping system and interactions with soils. This paper presents a participatory assessment framework involving local experts in building a shared diagnosis of nitrate losses from cropping systems in a WPA. It includes a co-designed typology of landscape units and participatory assessment of nitrate losses with the modeling software Syst'N. Results show that characteristics of cropping systems depended on soils and that nitrate losses were highest in shallow soils. Intercrop periods were identified as critical periods for nitrate leaching, which demonstrates the importance of considering pluri-annual crop rotations rather than individual crops. The framework is generic for a modeling approach based on the involvement of local experts, who define their functional system in an agronomically sound way.