Farmers-inventors in agro-equipment: logic of action, accompaniment, diffusion
Agriculteurs-inventeurs en agroéquipement : logique d'action, accompagnement, diffusion
Résumé
The current period of reorientation of agricultural production models, towards the limitation of inputs and respect for the environment, combined with the development of the potentialities offered by digital technology and robotics, would tend to make farming a place of technical inventions in agricultural equipment. These inventions, which could be the beginnings of potential innovations, are implemented, and often conceived, by farmers seeking either to invent objects, to combine new production techniques, or to adapt existing means, or still to improve or even to design systems of production of goods and services more or less in disruption with the systems already in place. But what logics are underlying these different inventions? The objective of this communication, drawing on several examples of farmer-inventors and innovators, is to report various experiences of technical inventions in agricultural equipment, from their origin, genesis, design, socioeconomic environment, asking ourselves in particular about the distinctive characteristics of their sociological profiles. From there we identify some overall logics of actions developed around these inventions, through dimensions like the level of scale of the invention, the mode of realization, the functions of the technical object and how the farmer defines the "sustainability" of his/her system. Finally we suggest that it will question the forms of support and accompaniment in agro-equipment inventions. In addition to the new tools proposed by research and advice for the development of innovative production systems, endogenous inventions by farmers justify new attention that highlights their contribution to the reorientation of agricultural production models.
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)