Characterization of forms of social and economic organizations associated with « firm agriculture » – AGRIFIRME

The action plan carried by the young team tried to answer two major challenges, that are, first, the construction of an interdisciplinary conceptual framework and, second, the comprehensive analysis of new forms of farming in France and in the world. A general conceptual framework common to the various areas of study was defined based on the specification of some major characteristics, such as the modes of action and of professional commitment, the movement and mobility of the farmers and of their organizations, and their evolution trajectories. This framework was then adapted and documented by every zone-team according to the local realities, in order to yield a set of indicators consistent with the concerned study area. These indicators were indicators of the performances of the productive systems but instead indicators that characterize the professional groups of the farmers and their organizations. Three main entries were adopted for this characterization: By the organizational forms and their functioning, by the spatial strategies of the actors of the firm, and by the political and geopolitical dimensions.

We showed that the “firm” agricultures are characterized by the following features:
• atypical operational modes of governance and management which rest on a multiplicity of the decision-making spheres, each one with its own purposes;
• a division of the production enterprise into several units working on a project mode;
• high levels of financial and technological investment, bound to a significant mobilization of material and immaterial resources which are not of agricultural origin;
• a dynamics of institutional and organizational innovation, which goes with the invention of new modes of decision-making and management;
• a recourse to salaried employees and/or to the delegation of farming activities, which creates relatively original social relationships;
• an optimization of the equity portfolio and a maximization of the profit;
• a growth strategy based on the research and the development of an expertise (fiscal, agronomic, legal) which tends to cut the farm from traditional organizational networks (agricultural professional organizations);
• the nature rather «nomad« of the farming activity and the often weak relation to the territory.

Possible extensions to AGRIFIRME project must aim to think the way in which farmers say firm become actors of the 'ecological transition «of agriculture particularly in the context of agricultural and rural policies« greened «. This would be for us to ask ourselves:
- Instead of these new organizations in the development of regional approaches organization of production, managing the flow of organic matter and pollutants, circular economies ... like the eco-industrial systems or «industrial biological communities« that we may emerge in the industrial sector;
- Their role in the eco-design of products incorporating food chains;
- Their involvement in the new markets of amenities;
- The type of innovation networks in which these firms are part of agriculture;
- The nature of trade with other forms of organization of production in the management of environmental issues (new co-existence between processes of agriculture to different logics).

The results of this project are developed in several publications and seminars from 2010 to 2013:
• Two special issues of the EHESS review Rural Studies:
o [ 1 ], « The “firm” agricultures, 1. Organizations and Financialization «, Rural Studies, no. 190, December 2012.
o [ 2 ], « The “firm” agricultures, 2. Delocalization and Eviction”, Rural Studies, no.191, January 2013.

• A Handbook :

o HERVIEU B., PURSEIGLE F. (2013), Sociologie des mondes agricoles, Armand Colin.
• Two intermediary seminars
o “Firm agricultures in Asia” at Sciences Po, Paris, February 5th, 2010.
o “Firm agricultures in the Americas” at the University of Toulouse, Toulouse, 10th & 11th February, 2011.
• An international seminar, “Firm agricultures in the world: identification and characterization”, INP-ENSAT, Toulouse, 10th to 12th December, 2014. The communications will be published in a collective book.

Characterization of forms of social and economic organizations associated with « firm agriculture »

The “AGRIFIRM” project aims to identify and characterize what is commonly referred to as “firm agricultures” and, in particular, the associated practice, forms of organization and types of management of the agricultural trade. Our objective is to account for the emergence of a new type of agriculture hitherto neglected by “rural studies”.
The development of a highly capitalist type of agriculture fully integrated into the commodity markets, of new forms of ownership of agricultural capital, and the arrival of new agents, testify to the emergence of social and economic organizations of agriculture at odds with the family-based forms recognised and supported by policy-makers in the second half of the twentieth-century.
At the global level, firm agricultures have now emerged beside “family agricultures”. The former are now supported by new investors (food industry, private funds, States) that wish to secure their supply of agricultural commodities and/or new investment opportunities.
Our ambition is to combine a sociological approach to agricultures in a globalized world with the analysis propounded by economists, geographers or management scholars. This interdisciplinary perspective derives from our commitment to characterizing “firm agriculture” in a variety of contexts and to approach its responses to new challenges and opportunities: globalization and opening of agricultural markets, uncertainties and controversies surrounding the preservation and management of ecosystems and of energy supplies.
This project will allow the consolidation of a network of early-career researchers based in the southwest of France. Its ambition, however, is ultimately to engage and collaborate with a range of stakeholders within and beyond the region such as professional organizations and private enterprises (Groupe Euralis-Pau ; Groupe Champagne-Céréales-Reims, Groupe Terreos-Lille, La Confédération Générale des planteurs de Betteraves-Paris). The objective is to build a common platform to confront categories of analysis with pragmatic imperatives. The action-plan elaborated by the team will address two major challenges: the construction of an interdisciplinary framework of analysis; the elaboration of a comprehensive analysis of new forms of agriculture in France and in the world.