How to influence the trajectory of organic agriculture's development when you are not in the driver's seat? The case of the French National Federation of Organic Farming

Quentin Chance (1, 2) , Ronan Le Velly (3, 1) , Frédéric Goulet (1, 4)

1 UMR Innovation - Innovation et Développement dans l'Agriculture et l'Alimentation
2 INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
3 MontpellierSupAgro - MontpellierSupAgro
4 Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement

This article describes the actions taken by the National Federation of Organic Farming (FNAB) to try to influence the course of organic agriculture's development in France. This federation wields the strength that accrues from its network of regional associations, but has no direct control over the economic actions of farmers and enterprises in the organic sector. It is trying to influence these actions in three different ways. First, it is drawing up a normative framework, a stabilised discourse about the risks that are linked to the current strong growth of the market and about the economic model and values that it wants to defend in this context. Second, the FNAB tries to affect the ways that the food supply chains are organised by promoting certain production and trade organisation schemes. Third, the FNAB produces information and references to help farmers and economic operators get their market bearings

Mots clés: Conventionalisation; Organic farming; Producers’ organisations; Scaling-up; Supply chains

Domaines: Sociologie

Quentin Chance, Ronan Le Velly, Frédéric Goulet. How to influence the trajectory of organic agriculture's development when you are not in the driver's seat? The case of the French National Federation of Organic Farming. Open Agriculture, 2018, 3 (1), pp.632-643. ⟨10.1515/opag-2018-0066⟩. ⟨halshs-02081398⟩