Just and sustainable transformed agricultural landscapes: An analysis based on local food actors’ ideal visions of agriculture

• Published in: Agriculture, ecosystems & environment ecosystems & environment, 2023-02, Vol.342, p.108236, Article 108236
• Main Authors: Young, J.C., Calla, S., Lécuyer, L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agriculture; Alternatives; Conflict; Imagination; Life Sciences; Participation; Transformation; Visioning
• ISSN: 0167-8809; 1873-2305; 0167-8809
• DOI: 10.1016/j.agee.2022.108236

Societal and policy trends are leading to major demands on food systems, including a transformation towards more sustainable and resilient farming systems. Research is increasingly highlighting the importance of considering the landscape scale in such transformations, with the understanding that such an approach will require agricultural landscape design informed through trans-disciplinary approaches. Despite a number of sustainability transformations advocated in the scientific literature, there may, however, be very different views amongst actors of the food chain, from producers to consumers, over what such a transformed landscape should look like, leading to potential social conflicts and lack of progress towards transformative change. This has led authors to suggest a need to understand better the visions of a transformed agriculture from the perspectives of food system actors, including rural communities and farmers. This paper contributes to this debate by analysing stakeholder visions based on a case study in Bourgogne Franche-Comté (France) with three study sites involving: agriculture and water management near Auxerre, apiculture-agriculture in the Jura, and viticulture near Macon. Using the results of 55 interviews that included a ‘miracle question’ over what an ideal agriculture might look like, five ideal visions were identified: a recognised agriculture; a diverse agriculture; an anchored agriculture; a predictable agriculture; and a technological agriculture. Building on the differences and commonalities of the different visions, the results allow for the identification of areas of consensus, and also, where there are irreconcilable values and worldviews underpinning the views, how to address them. The process of visioning can be an important approach to promote greater understanding of different stakeholders’ visions and transformation towards greater sustainability, especially when the resulting visions become the starting point of participatory processes and outcomes at the landscape scale. •There is a call for transformation to more just and sustainable farming landscapes.•Visioning with food system actors identified five ideal visions of agriculture.•All visions have direct relevance for biodiversity and ecosystem services.•Visions differed according to agricultural practices and actor groups.•Visioning can highlight common ground and acceptable solutions.