Progressing toward agroecology in vineyards through systemic innovation

Abstract

Viticulture is facing major challenges, and agroecology is recognized as an innovative approach to enhance food system sustainability. However, knowledge is lacking about how winegrowers design innovations to support agroecology, which limits the ability of farmers and advisers to effectively steer and assess progress toward agroecology. This study aims to develop a tool to assess the agroecology level of vineyards, and to investigate the link between progress in the agroecological transition and the systemic and farm-scale reasoning of innovations. To this end, we interviewed 24 winegrowers, developed a table to characterize the agroecology level of the farms and identified the farmers’ agronomic rationales. Agroecology levels varied widely among the surveyed farms. The agroecology elements of synergy, efficiency, and a circular and solidarity-based economy explained most of the differences between farms at the extreme ends of the score ranges. We used semi-quantitative and qualitative indicators to highlight systemic reasoning in highly agroecological farms. The winegrowers from the most agroecological farms changed their practices more frequently, mainly by implementing practices that rely on system reorganization and redesign and by addressing a wider variety of results when changing their practices. The analysis of these farms revealed several success factors, including the adjustment of other practices after a change, careful observation of the agroecosystem, and a paradigm shift involving long-term reflection on practice effects. Moreover, successful farms are smaller, and have often reduced land areas to gain increased flexibility in production factors. They seek autonomy regarding inputs and promote synergies with respect to the farm’s different business activities. This work provides valuable support to winegrowers and advisers by offering them a simple tool to track the progress of vineyards when transitioning to a more agroecological system. This study also identifies key traits of agroecological farms that can inspire and be adopted on other farms.