Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
scale, and the processes which enable resistance to be overcome and allow the transition
to proceed.
Our three cases provide heuristic illustrations of such resistance processes at the niche
level. To reinforce the first dimension of anchoring, the actors involved in the tandem
which initiated the niche had to manage and enrol a third category of actors. In Rennes,
the producer-consumer tandem found it necessary to find intermediary processors willing
to be involved in the AAFN. Three examples exemplify this process. First, the Manger
Bio 35 group (the network of farmers offering organic produce for public procurement in
places such as schools and hospitals in and around Rennes) had to work together to handle
the larger amounts of produce needed by these venues, raising the need to create
sophisticated logistics to collect products from various farms. In the second example, beef
farmers had to find slaughter houses willing to return processed carcasses back to farmers,
who then needed to find a butcher willing to prepare meat in packages which were
adapted to direct marketing. In the third example, farmers who marketed their products at
various local markets and in box schemes began to organize an association and employed
an individual to collect and sell the produce on their behalf at the market (at least one
producer must be present to comply with legal requirements). Without such solutions,
direct marketing of farm produce would not be feasible for a single farmer working alone.
In Pilsen, the size of the niche has remained limited enough to allow food processing
either at the farm level before marketing, or by the consumer. Associations to support
collective marketing and supply have not yet developed in Pilsen, but the rapid speed of
niche development may initiate similar developments to those in Rennes, enrolling
intermediary actors. This approach would allow the group to cope with the growing
volume of local quality food produced in the territory and avoid the difficulties of time
constraints for farmers involved in direct marketing.
In Santorini, the wine-tourism sector tandem needed the commitment of farmers to
grow grapes. Farmers were expected to change their production practices to meet new
quality standards required by the niche. These changes included: earlier grape harvesting
(August rather than September) to lower the degree of alcohol and the acidity of the wine
produced; harvesting all red and all white grapes at one time, instead of daily harvesting
of mature grapes; growing selected local varieties and only one variety per parcel instead
of multiple vine types per parcel; and more recently, vine cultivation in lines instead of
scattered plants to facilitate access by machinery.
Further, the third set of actors in this case expected - and even pushed - to join the
niche in order to pursue the successful trajectory initiated by the original tandem. This
third set of actors had shown active or passive signs of resistance to this enrolment.
Why was there resistance?
In Rennes during the 1980s and early 1990s, and in Pilsen during the early stage of the
niche, intermediary actors (representing the processing and logistics sub-regime) were
absent. Niche actors did not try to enrol them, but neither did the 'missing' actors try to
join the niche. Their absence can be considered a strong expression of 'lock-in' processes,
those actors being tightly linked to the regime. This lock-in is entirely technical (actors
have invested in costly specialist equipment which cannot readily be converted to other
uses) and economic (actors depend on economic chains involving up-stream and down-
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