May 2023 | Learning, reflexivity, decision-making, and behavioral change for sustainable viticulture associated with participatory action research

• Authors : Maxime Madouas, Mélanie Henaux, Valentine Delrieu, Caroline Jaugey, Emma Teillet, Mireille Perrin, Carine Schmitt, Marc Oberheiden, Frederic Schermesser, Isabelle Souste-Gacougnolle, Jean E. Masson

EN Despite the abundance of compelling scientific knowledge about dramatic changes in climate, biodiversity and the environment, there is little change in human behavior. Do humans perceive and understand the gravity of the challenges at stake, or are they overwhelmed by adversity? The challenge may be in finding appropriate levers to involve stakeholders in a broader process of shared learning, while producing scientific knowledge, to overcome uncertainty, and achieving the expected collective action? In the field of viticulture, researchers, winegrowers, citizens and environmental associations have been involved in participatory action research projects, one located in Switzerland, one in Germany and two in France. All actors were involved, from the formulation of questions up to the production of knowledge, to address the issue of the negative impacts of viticulture on the environment and human health. Group workshops and individual interviews were conducted on each of the four sites, for a nine-year period. A collective workshop involving also actors outside the project was conducted, and followed by a trinational workshop bringing together actors from Swiss, German and French projects. The audio recordings and writings produced were transcribed. All texts were analyzed on the linguistic level, with textometric tools, while going back to the actors’ initial quotes. Our results suggest that during the course of projects, more sustainable viticultural practices were designed, and implemented in the vineyard, on a large scale. Also, our analysis suggests that, in parallel to changes in viticulture practices, a new vocabulary, associated with different individual and collective reasoning, emerged in the discourse of the actors involved in projects. These major changes were associated with an inventiveness that developed within and beyond the groups. Because human reasoning changed in the context of participatory action research, we suggest that such a research format could address global issues, finally reaching awaited changes.

March 2021 | Imaginer et réaliser des projets sociotechniques en recherche-action participative : un exemple en viticulture

• Author :  Jean E. Masson 

EN Despite the impact on the environment, biodiversity and health, winegrowing practices change little. The vine, its image, the players, the standards and the public are all obstacles to change. Scientific disciplines, for their part, isolated from each other and from society, are unable to address the complexity involved. This article describes a participatory action-research project involving winegrowers, NGOs, consultants, elected representatives, citizens and researchers. Its epistemological framework values disagreement and different lines of reasoning. A consensus is reached. Scientific knowledge and mobilization for action in the vineyards are produced simultaneously. A reflection is proposed on the relationship between engineers and stakeholders, for the co-design of projects

January 2021 | Transdisciplinary participatory-action-research from questions to actionable knowledge for sustainable viticulture development

• Authors : Jean E. Masson, Isabelle Souste-Gacougnolle, Mireille Perrin, Carine Schmitt, Mélanie Henaux, Caroline Jaugey, Emma Teillet, Marc Lollier, Jean-François Lallemand, Frederic Schermesser & GIEE Westhalten 

EN Viticulture negatively impacts the environment, biodiversity, and human health; however, despite the widely acknowledged challenges that this intensive agricultural activity poses to sustainable development, measures to reduce its invasiveness are constantly being deferred or rebuffed. Constraints to change are linked to vine cultivation methods, the impacts of climate change on vine resilience and disease sensitivity, and socio-economic models, as well as growing criticisms from society. Research and training have thus far failed to provide solutions or mobilize stakeholders on a large scale. Such resistance to sustainable practices development calls into question the effectiveness of knowledge production systems and relations between scientists, winegrowers, and society: Have scientific disciplines overly isolated themselves from each other and from the wider society to the point of losing the capacity to incorporate alternative forms of knowledge and reasoning and achieve collaborative action? Herein, we describe our findings from a participatory action research project that began in Westhalten, France, in 2013 and ultimately spread to Switzerland and Germany over the next 6 years. We show that participatory action research can mobilize long-term collaborations between winegrowers, NGOs, advisers, elected officials, members of civil society, and researchers, despite differing visions of viticulture and the environment. The epistemological framework of this research promotes consensus-building by valuing complexity and dissensus in knowledge and reasoning such that all actors are involved in experimentation and the production of results. From these findings, consensus statements were collectively elaborated in qualitative and quantitative registers. Once acknowledged by the scientific community, these consensus statements became shareable knowledge. We propose that this renewed interdisciplinarity associating the human and social sciences with agronomic and biological sciences in collaboration with stakeholders produces actionable knowledge that mobilizes and engages winegrowers to conceive and implement sustainable viticulture on a transnational scale.

November 2018 | Responses to climatic and pathogen threats differ in biodynamic and conventional vines

• Authors : Isabelle Soustre-Gacougnolle, Marc Lollier, Carine Schmitt, Mireille Perrin, Estelle Buvens, Jean-François Lallemand, Mélanie Mermet, Mélanie Henaux, Christelle Thibault-Carpentier, Doulayé Dembelé, Damien Steyer, Céline Clayeux, Anne Moneyron & Jean E. Masson 

EN Viticulture is of high socio-economic importance; however, its prevalent practices severely impact the environment and human health, and criticisms from society are raising. Vine managements systems are further challenged by climatic changes. Of the 8 million hectares grown worldwide, conventional and organic practices cover 90% and 9% of acreage, respectively. Biodynamic cultivation accounts for 1%. Although economic success combined with low environmental impact is widely claimed by biodynamic winegrowers from California, to South Africa, and France, this practice is still controversial in viticulture and scientific communities. To rethink the situation, we encouraged stakeholders to confront conventional and biodynamic paradigms in a Participative-Action-Research. Co-designed questions were followed up by holistic comparison of conventional and biodynamic vineyard managements. Here we show that the amplitude of plant responses to climatic threats was higher in biodynamic than conventional management. The same stood true for seasonal trends and pathogens attacks. This was associated with higher expression of silencing and immunity genes, and higher anti-oxidative and anti-fungal secondary metabolite levels. This suggests that sustainability of biodynamic practices probably relies on fine molecular regulations. Such knowledge should contribute to resolving disagreements between stakeholders and help designing the awaited sustainable viticulture at large.

September 2017 | Linking the knowledge and reasoning of dissenting actors fosters a bottom-up design of agroecological viticulture

• Authors: Anne Moneyron, LMC, Westhalten group, Jean-François Lallemand, Carine Schmitt, Mireille Perrin, Isabelle Soustre-Gacougnolle & Jean E. Masson

EN Wine growing has a high economic value globally, and vineyards, with their centenarian grape varieties, are an integral part of our societies. Yet with the use of spraying to control pathogens and weeds, mainstream viticulture has become a big pesticide consumer. Criticism of this conventional type of viticulture and its environmental/health impacts is increasing strongly throughout society. Until now, mainstream ‘top-down’ scientific-technical developments have focused on breeding for new varieties and on designing new agronomic models. In parallel, organic and biodynamic practices have been developing alternatives. Either way, changes do not develop on the expected time scale. We posit that the diversity of actors concerned, from winegrowers to technical advisers, consumer associations, conservationists, elected representatives, citizens, and scientists, all contribute to the perpetuation of a constrained situation, through their differences in perspectives and practices, positions, knowledge, and reasoning. To untangle this situation, we brought together these dissenting actors. With a view to resolving the epistemological challenges, we then characterized four types of knowledge, along with the reasoning in play, and designed a tetrahedral model to legitimize and inter-relate them. This tetrahedron supported co-construction of a collective epistemology after a paradigm shift, in which the dissensus became a resource on numerous occasions. We then highlighted masked double-bind situations and went further, developing a seven-step Argonaut to conduct the project. New practices were designed, to do away with herbicides and develop ecological grassing. They were implemented on a large scale in vineyards, within a short time frame, while enhancing the value of a neighbouring nature reserve. Projects currently underway in Switzerland, Germany, and France suggest that differences in knowledge are enriching, and yet that the reasoning at play fit with our tetrahedron model. We thus show that dissenting actors can dissolve agronomic/economic/ecological dilemmas, while acting under uncertainty, and foster agroecology development.