Necessity of clear concepts and convergence of discourse for climate-smart agriculture (Costa Rica)

Laffourcade Roland, Dhorne Soazic, Gutiérrez-Montes Isabel, Rapidel Bruno, Sibelet Nicole. 2015. Necessity of clear concepts and convergence of discourse for climate-smart agriculture (Costa Rica). In : Building tomorrow's research agenda and bridging the science-policy gap. CIRAD, INRA, IRD, Agropolis International, Wageningen UR, CGIAR, UCDAVIS, FAO, Agreenium, GFAR. Montpellier : CIRAD, 282. Climate-Smart Agriculture 2015 : Global Science Conference. 3, Montpellier, France, 16 Mars 2015/18 Mars 2015.

Matériel d'accompagnement : 1 poster

Résumé : Since the 80's, many environmentalist discourses were elaborated at the international level, either in the form of technical topics or in the form of vaster concepts like “sustainable development”. Studying the applications and effects at the local level of these topics and concepts makes it possible to anticipate, design and apply the recent concept of Climate -Smart Agriculture. In this poster, we aim firstly to put in perspective the CSA concept with standard technical topics (soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and chemical pollution) and concepts (sustainable agriculture) and secondly to identify the precautions to be taken so that the CSA concept gives concrete results at a local scale. We wonder which conditions are necessary so that a concept has effects on farmers' practices. Costa Rica is a country where the State promotes environmental protection following the influence of international concepts; CSA is already present in some leader institutions (such as FAO and CATIE). The country, as many countries in Central America, is affected by extreme climatic conditions associated with global change. We conducted this research in one of Costa Rica's top coffee-producing areas (Los Santos within the Tarrazu area). We interviewed 112 farmers, 24 members of local institutions and used participant observation to have a greater understanding of the social processes that lead to changes of agricultural practices. The findings illustrate that: (i) local actors formulate their environmentalist discourses according to other objectives (ii) farmers put in practice environmentalist discourses when they are convergent (iii) divergence of discourses opens the door to farmers' idiosyncrasy and induces instrumentalization, that is greenwashing. Experience highlights the necessity to approach the Climate Smart Agriculture concept in a convergent manner in order to avoid instrumentalization and inefficiency on the field and to enable conditions for an agriculture ready to face climate change and to meet development goals. (Texte intégral)

Classification Agris : A01 - Agriculture - Considérations générales
P40 - Météorologie et climatologie
E14 - Economie et politique du développement

Auteurs et affiliations

• Laffourcade Roland, AgroParisTech (FRA)
• Dhorne Soazic, AgroParisTech (FRA)
• Gutiérrez-Montes Isabel, CATIE (CRI)
• Rapidel Bruno, CIRAD-PERSYST-UMR SYSTEM (CRI) ORCID: 0000-0003-0288-5650
• Sibelet Nicole, CIRAD-ES-UMR INNOVATION (CRI) ORCID: 0000-0002-2107-6376

Source : Cirad - Agritrop (https://agritrop.cirad.fr/575790/)

Métriques

[ Page générée et mise en cache le 2019-10-08 ]