Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13

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Journal of Rural Studies

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud

When farmers learn through dialog with their practices: A proposal

for a theory of action for agricultural trajectories
dart a, b, *, Pierre M. Stassart a
David Bre
a
University of Li
ege e Environmental Sciences and Management Department, SEED, Avenue de Longwy, 185, BE-6700 Arlon, Belgium
b
University of Li
ege e Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, TERRA/AgricultureIsLife, Passage des D
eport
es, 2, BE-5030 Gembloux, Belgium

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Using pragmatic sociology, we studied feed autonomy in mixed livestock-crop farming in the western
Received 16 November 2016 region of Belgium (Hainaut Province). In this paper we first describe feed autonomy as an innovation
Received in revised form structured around the withdrawal of soybeans and corn from cattle rations. In so doing, we approach
13 March 2017
feed autonomy as an opportunity for farmers to change their relationships with the soil, plants, animals,
Accepted 22 April 2017
Available online 2 May 2017
and other human beings and reconnect harmful situations to their courses of action. We then show (1)
how this withdrawal is accompanied by adaptation in breeding practices (through reconfigurations of
cognitive processes and practices) and (2) how events that interrupt the farmer's normal course of action
Keywords:
Good farming
require the farmers to develop their attentiveness to, i.e., their abilities to heed various elements to allow
Trajectory for variability and guide their actions. We therefore propose a theory of action in which learning is the
Feed autonomy result of surprises, of what destabilizes the farmer and raises doubt in her/his mind about her/his
Livestock farming practices. To do that, we take inspiration from John Dewey's work and his notion of experience. Our
Agricultural transition results question the conceptualization of the trajectory that represents the process of change as a series
Pragmatic sociology of sequences with the event as a trigger. Indeed, we understand change to be a constant process of
John Dewey adjusting goals and means that is punctuated by events that become events only when attention is given
to them. So, the event itself is no longer the trigger, and understanding adaptation in a trajectory's di-
rection hinges more on the attention that is paid to the event.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction […] by drawing on past examples of socio-technical trans-

formations, and by developing historical narratives of systems
The transitions that have begun reshaping our societies, be they change, future transitions come to be treated teleologically. The
digital, energy-related, transport-related, agricultural, or have been impression may be given that there is a degree of inevitability
prime subjects of social and management science research that has about the process whereby tentative, mobile and elastic socio-
given rise to a flurry of literature in the past few years. In this technical configurations are seen to lead inexorably, through a
research these transitions are often represented and theorized as a cumulative sequence of stages, to lasting and increasingly large-
series of stages through which innovation pushes a given socio- scale changes in a socio-technical regime (Berkhout et al., 2004,
technical configuration, which thus evolves from one state to the p. 53).
next. The adjective “socio-technical” implies a set of practices,
regulations, networks, and technological artifacts. Berkhout et al.
The fact that the theories that we use to interpret ongoing or
(2014), who refer to a “multilevel approach”, have nonetheless
coming trajectories of change are built upon past observations, the
drawn our attention to a problematic effect that could spawn a
meanings and directions of which have in a way been stabilized,
representation of past transitions in the form of a series of stages, as
possibly raises two problems: (1) It gives a representation of change
follows:
that drops from the picture most of the hesitations that have
marked the trajectory to give the impression of an almost pro-
grammed transition from one step to the next in a gradual process
of reinforcement and broadening of the change; and (2) it is sub-
* Corresponding author. Avenue de Longwy, 185, BE-6700 Arlon Belgium.
tended by the hypothesis that the baseline state, desirable state,
dart).
E-mail address: dbredart@ulg.ac.be (D. Bre

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.04.009
0743-0167/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13
and path to take in order to link the two are known. In other words,
it presupposes a certain knowledge of the desired ends, as a result
of which one need only assign the means to achieve them.
Such a consideration opens the door to debate on uncertainty in
the processes of change. This debate is not new in the field of
transition studies. The theory of reflexive governance (Vob and
Kemp, 2006), which is rooted in particular in the work of Beck
(1992, 1994) and Beck et al. (2003), discusses our societies' abili-
ties to predict the development of certain phenomena and the ef-
fects of the programs instituted to manage them. Overestimating
the predictive power of society, that is, the degree to which society
can control these phenomena, runs the risk of locking the solutions
to problems in a cycle in which the solutions to yesterday's prob-
lems create today's e unexpected e problems, while the solutions
to today's problems create tomorrow's problems. Reflexive rather
than reactive governance thus entails continuously adjusting action
in a process of dialog between the action and its effects. In such a
case, the relevant knowledge is distributed and generated in a
context of implementation such as the documented case of the
collective management of forest ecosystem services
(Dedeurwaerdere, 2012), natural resources (Steyaert et al., 2007;
Steyaert and Ollivier, 2007), or even pesticides (Me lard and
Mormont, 2013).
While the debate is far from new, it is still topical. Stirling (2015)
gives us a good glimpse of this by distinguishing, somewhat pro-
vocatively, transitions from transformations:
On one hand, are “transitions”: managed under orderly control,
through incumbent structures according to tightly disciplined
knowledge, often emphasizing technological innovation, to-
wards some particular known (presumptively shared) end. On
the other hand, are “transformations”, involving more diverse,
emergent and unruly political alignments, more about social
innovations, challenging incumbent structures, subject to
incommensurable knowledge and pursuing contending (even
unknown) ends (Stirling, 2015, p. 54).
In this paper we explore the possibility of representing the
trajectory from a transformative standpoint. In other words, we try
to keep visible the hesitations of the transitions' (or we should
rather say “transformations”, if we abide by Stirling's distinction)
agents and the extent to which the latter take their actions' unex-
pected effects into account to change course. To do this, we shall
look at agricultural transitions on the scale of the farm. We start by
reviewing the literature that deals with the conceptualization of
farmers' trajectories. Then we look at what we can learn from the
thinking of American pragmatist philosophers, with special refer-
ence to John Dewey and his notion of experience, to understand the
link between action and its consequences in learning processes.
This shall be done through a case study, that of feed autonomy on
cattle farms. Our aim is to propose a dynamic interpretation of
trajectories, that is to say, trajectories seen as ongoing stories that
are played out over and over, with their endings yet to be written.
2. Conceptualizing trajectories
The concept of trajectory is used to analyze changes in farms
over the long term. Different uses of the concept can be found in the
literature. Trajectory typologies are defined using mathematical
tools in order to identify the drivers of change and anticipate the
evolution of farms (García-Martinez et al., 2009; Ryschawy et al.,
2013). The flexibility and adaptability of farms are assessed by
characterizing management strategies (David et al., 2010) and
evolutionary models (Moulin et al., 2008; Cialdella et al., 2009).
Such approaches are in continuity with systemic lines of research
and adaptive management (Darnhofer et al., 2010). Other studies
take the perspective of transition theories to describe particular
technological paradigms (Dosi, 1982) and include processes of
detachment from the socio-technical regime (Vankeerberghen and
Stassart, 2016). The agricultural sciences and social sciences use the
concept of trajectory (Lamine and Bellon, 2009). It can be an
intermediating concept for interdisciplinary work (see Chantre and
Cardona, 2014).
2.1. The trajectory to understand the transition process on the level
of the farm
The literature that refers to transition theories mobilizes the
concept of lock-in to explain the irreversibility of agricultural sys-
tems and the conditions that permit alternatives (Stassart and
Jamar, 2008; Vanloqueren and Baret, 2009). Lock-ins and transi-
tions within farming systems have also been analyzed from the
concept of path dependency (Kay, 2003). These phenomena have
nevertheless not been widely studied in ways that enable us to
understand the processes of change occurring at farm level (Lamine
and Bellon, 2009). Different conceptualizations of farm-level tra-
jectories have been proposed more recently, with particular inter-
est shown in understanding the non-linearity, gradualness, and
robustness of transition paths. We review the main contributions to
situate our own contribution to understanding change at farm
level.
Sutherland et al. (2012) conceptualize major changes in trajec-
tories' directions based on empirical work. They explain bi-
furcations using trigger events (e.g., intergenerational succession,
financial difficulties, health problems) that destabilize the farm's
methods of organization and lead to its reconfiguration. The au-
thors rely on Wilson's trajectory theory (2008a, 2008b, 2012).
Wilson identifies different types of farm that he places on a scale of
productive and non-productive actions and ideas. He describes the
path as a succession of relatively linear periods interrupted by
abrupt changes in direction that he calls “nodal points”. He recog-
nizes the pivotal role that certain events can play. “Corridors”
represent the range of possibilities at each redirection and are
delimited by borders that symbolize system memory and the ef-
fects of lock-in (e.g., professional networks, public policies).
Sutherland et al. (2012) note, however, the lack of explanation for
the process of change in Wilson's work. The authors then propose a
conceptualization that takes the form of a cycle (the “triggering
change cycle”) in which change processes are broken down into five
stages: path dependency, trigger events, active assessment,
implementation, and consolidation. In this way, the path is orga-
nized sequentially in order to explain the change process.
Several proposals have also been developed on the basis of case
studies of crop cultures, integrated pest management, and organic
farming. Lamine (2011a) combines a comprehensive sociological
approach with the ESR (Efficiency/Substitution/Redesign) analyt-
ical framework developed in crop science and biology (see Hill and
MacRae, 1995). She identifies two types of transition, namely,
gradual, robust transitions on the one hand and more direct,
reversible transitions on the other hand. Lamine thus determines
the conditions for the robustness of change: the gradual realization
of the transition, the inclusion of farmers in collectives, and in-
teractions with the non-agricultural world. Chantre and Cardona
(2014) also mobilize the ESR framework; they complexify it by
adding an intensive phase (i.e., which corresponds to the systematic
repetition of interventions without allowing for the context, trying
to optimize the effectiveness of these interventions, or even eval-
uating their relevancy) and integrating the producer-consumer
level proposed by Gliessman (2007). These authors characterize
learning in three steps: identifying a new way to perform the
 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13
action; experimental applications on the farm; and assessment.
Finally, Chantre et al. (2015) analyze trajectories as coherent agri-
cultural phases (e.g., input intensive, rationalized, input saving on
the scale of the crop sequence, etc.) and explain the transition from
one phase to another through “key transitional practices” (e.g., use
of multiresistant varieties; mechanical weeding; and so on). We
find that these different authors organize the trajectory sequen-
tially in order to explain the progression of transitions, doing so by
using the ESR context, the decomposition of learning into stages, or
the definition of “agronomic coherence phases”.
However, organizing trajectories sequentially has the limitation
of blurring the progression within the same sequence, as well as
cycles and overlapping between sequences. Sutherland et al. (2012),
for example, nuance their words: “… the triggering change cycle
conceptualization represents an idealized process. Triggers are often
unpredictable, and thus may occur at any stage in the change process
[…] There is a degree of overlap between the stages, with active
consideration of options sometimes occurring in tandem with
implementation of new activities on a small-scale basis” (pp.
144e145). Sequencing thus poses the problem of the boundaries
between sequences that are in fact an arrangement created from the
observer's perspective for purposes of clarification. Lamine (2011a)
also highlights this issue repeatedly and concludes: “Efficiency,
Substitution and Redesign correspond less to successive stages than
to overlapping, lasting periods in farmers' trajectories. It means that
the complexity and overlapping of the stages of transitions have to
be acknowledged in order to analyze them or, in terms of possible
practical implementation, to accompany them efficiently” (p. 218).
However, we do not understand how the author can depart from
borders that, by her own analysis, assume sequences.
We postulate that the difficulty of departing from a sequential
organization of the trajectory depends on a systemic anchoring that
is more or less pronounced in the different conceptualizations
described, and which attempts to identify determinants, both
external (e.g., public policy, fluctuations in markets) and internal
(e.g., farmers' identities and motivations), to explain the evolution
of the farm. When events determining that actions will change
occur, such events destabilize the order of things, which causes a
reorganization of the system. One then needs to identify the stages
between a preceding situation and another innovation, through
which the farm and the farmer pass. Either the steps represent a
classification of the types of change undertaken or they represent a
breakdown of the learning process. The gradualness and conditions
of the changes are thus identified by labeling and categorizing
practices. However, such conceptualizations tell us little about how
the farmer takes action from the farmer's point of view. In other
words, they do not offer any theory of action. As a result, a me-
chanical vision of change, where moments determine actions, is
upheld: That is to say, the moments lead the farmer to a state where
s/he must do something else and move from one sequence to
another. Our task is therefore to attempt to equip the concept of
trajectory with a theory of action that allows us to depart from the
boundaries that are assumed by sequences. We propose a theo-
retical and methodological switch that takes the form of revisiting
the conceptualization of transition trajectories.
2.2. Equipping trajectories with a theory of action
We base our thinking on a case study, that of feed autonomy in
livestock farming, from the pragmatic sociology perspective. Feed
autonomy consists in increasing the share of the livestock's diet
that is produced on the farm itself. The pragmatic sociology
approach means that we try to understand feed autonomy from the
farmers' perspective and their feed autonomy experiences. In the
section below we shall first give some landmarks to understand
3
what a pragmatic posture entails and clarify Dewey's notion of
experience. We shall then use this notion in our analysis to equip
the trajectory with a theory of action. After that, we shall explain
our methodology.
2.2.1. Pragmatism and John Dewey's notion of experience
According to the pragmatist philosophers (the founders of
pragmatism include Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, George
Herbert Mead, and John Dewey), conceiving of a thing boils down
to identifying its practical manifestations; the meaning of the thing
lies in its implications. As Pierce says:
Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical
bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have.
Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our
conception of the object (Peirce, 2002 [1903]; excerpted from
Lavergne and Monde  me
, 2008).
Seen from this perspective, experience reveals the reality of
things. The individual produces knowledge as s/he acts. Truth is not
something absolute; it is not an essence that must be extracted
from things, with the individual being the enlightened spectator of
this process. Rather, the individual and the environment are
determined by the situation. Action is made of and makes the
environment (Shalin, 1986). As James tells us, the reality of things
opens up to the individual through this mutual constitution:
What truly exists is not objects, but objects in the making (James,
1910; excerpted from Foucart, 2013 p.75, our translation).
Dewey opted for the term “transaction” so as to stress the fact
that the interaction affected not only the nature of the relationship
between two entities, but also the nature of each entity (Foucart,
2013). In other words, individuals and objects are created and
changed in the course of action. Entities acquire identities only in
situations of exchanges, of reciprocal actions, of mutually depen-
dent evolutions (Mormont, 2015).
Now let us take a closer look at experience as Dewey understood
it. Experience is a core concept of Dewey's philosophy (see, among
other references, his writings of 2005 [1906], 2010 [1934], 2011
[1916,1938], and 2012 [1925]). Dewey was interested in the op-
portunities that individuals had to use existing means to change
real situations, to renew their existence, i.e., opportunities for
experience (Zask, 2015). Following Zask (2015)’s reading of Dewey’s
work, experience is the link between floundering and acting. It
occurs when tension breaks the continuity that exists between the
individual and the environment (understood as the entire set of
existential conditions). Experience is thus a special way of adapting.
Action is a way to surmount misgivings and doubt. To be able to
have a strong experience, the individual must be able to see the
connections between consequences and the course of action that
produces them. That is what gives the experience meaning. As
Dewey said: “Consequences have to be taken care of, looked out
for” (Dewey, 2003 [1927], p. 71). Experience is achieved when the
course of action makes it possible to change a harmful situation,
whereas incomplete experience calls for other experiences, which,
in occurring, complete it. The changes that are produced may not
only be unexpected, but may even head in the opposite direction to
what was expected. The action comes up against resistance, as a
result of which the action must be refined, adjusted, and rein-
vented. Experience can also be understood as “an unforeseeable
series of changes of which chance, accident, but also groping, effort,
desire, and will-power are often decisive factors” (Zask, 2015, p. 51).
The processes are not to be understood through their terms
4 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13
(starting points and goals), but rather as an evolution in which “all
moments are what they are as starting points and end-points in
relation to some specific portion of the evolution” (Dewey, 1904;
excerpted from Zask, 2015, p. 45, our translation). Experience is
consequently both an end and a means for having new experiences.
Finally, the notion of experience assumes that individuals are
considered to be highly heterogeneous, given that each individual
is unique because of what s/he has lived, because of her/his
experiences.
Before going further into the explanation of our methodological
approach, let us show how the pragmatist philosophers' thinking
has influenced the positions adopted by sociology. Let us start with
an explanation of the historian's pragmatic approach e developed
in a dialog with sociology e that we borrow from Lavergne and
Monde  me
 (2008):
… The interdisciplinary dialog [that begins] between history and
sociology is then most thrilling. The pragmatic position appears
in it as a barrier against anachronism. The historian must take
pains to remain as close to the experiences of the individuals
whom he is studying as possible. That means becoming reflexive
and extremely vigilant as regards the analytical categories that s/
he uses to describe and interpret the past. The methodological
consequence of this pragmatic perspective, itself the heir on this
point of the ethnomethodological current, is explicit: The source
is no longer simply a certain informative content that must be
categorized with a pre-existing theoretical vocabulary, but an
action, the course and effects of which must be followed
(Lavergne and Monde me, 2008).
While this description is drawn up by the historian, it suits so-
ciology completely, especially if the focus of study is transition, as of
the moment that we no longer talk about describing and inter-
preting the past but about situations in the making (which, of
course, are also understood by looking at how they unfolded in the
past). Indeed, as we mentioned in the introduction to this paper,
interpreting ongoing changes from analytical categories rooted in
the study of past changes carries the risk of having us handle these
changes teleologically. So, in a way, treating a developing situation
teleologically would be to the sociologist what an anachronism is to
the historian. The sociologist, like the historian, must thus take
pains to stay as close to the unfolding action as the individuals who
experience it.
The pragmatic approach taken by the sociologist, which is also
influenced by such currents as ethnomethodology and symbolic
interactionism, rests upon different principles. First and foremost is
the need to distance oneself from certain dualistic presuppositions,
e.g., the opposition between subject and object, consciousness and
being, perception and action, facts and values, ends and means, and
the individual and society. Barthe et al. (2013) give us a good
overview of the methodological implications that are entailed
when the sociologist adopts a pragmatic approach. We shall try to
sum them up as follows: The idea is to strive not to leave the
framework of the situation. The “macro” level is thus grasped
through practices. Phenomena must be grasped in their concrete
observability, which is to say, the situation in the action's present.
The past is thus understood through its connections with its pre-
sent effects, by the way the individuals refer to them. Interests are
not envisioned as being prerequisites for action, but as being
formed by and in the course of the action. The individuals' justifi-
cations are “taken seriously” by striving to account for their prac-
tical functioning and the social effects of the individuals' practices.
The individuals' reflexive activities are not dissociated from their
practical activities. Pragmatic sociology “consequently distances
itself from the notion according to which our most empirical
practices proceed from a mechanical adjustment to other and the
environment” (p.189). Action and learning are seen in the in-
dividual's tensions, contradictions, and distress. So, action is not
deduced from the dispositions that the individual is said to have.
Power relations are seen through the trials, effects of power, and
arrangements (“agencements”) that these effects make possible.
The asymmetry of the power relationship is thus not a given and
neither total nor completely stable and inequalities in this rela-
tionship are considered to be a product of the action and requiring
explanation rather than an explanatory resource thereof.
2.2.2. Methodology
The data come from survey work carried out in Western Hainaut
(Belgium), an area that is characterized overwhelmingly by con-
ventional family farms that mix livestock farming and crop farming
(e.g., sugar beet and potato production). We first conducted an
exploratory interview of an adviser working for an agricultural
union (FUGEA) in June 2014. This woman had been running a
“group for feed autonomy on our farms” (“groupe pour une
autonomie fourrage re de nos fermes”) since 2012. Our meeting
with her enabled us to identify the first four farmers in our study.
We then proceeded in two ways. On the one hand, we used a
“snowball method”, meaning that we asked the surveyed farmers
(1) to recommend other people to include in our study and/or (2)
provide us with the contact details of the farmers whom they
mentioned during their interviews. On the other hand, we took part
in a trade fair on feed autonomy in September 2014 and a feed
autonomy forum in December 2015 that were organized in the area
of our study jointly by the farmers, an agricultural union (FUGEA),
and three nature parks (Parc naturel des Plaines de l'Escaut, Parc
naturel du Pays des Collines, and Parc naturel r
egional Scarpe-Escaut).
At these events we met and jotted down the contact details of
farmers who had been unknown to us until then so as to broaden
the network investigated. Finally, we must point out that we con-
tacted our subjects by phone or directly in the case of the above-
mentioned trade fair and forum. Only one of the farmers refused
to meet with us, justifying his refusal by a death in the family.
We conducted nineteen semi-structured interviews of fourteen
farmers between July 2014 and March 2016. Five farmers were
surveyed twice, at from four-to sixteen-month intervals. Repeating
the surveys allowed us (1) to cross-check the information collected
and (2) to observe the progression of changes at different stages of
the process. Each survey was organized into two parts. The first
consisted of a semi-structured interview and the second of a tour of
the farm. The surveys took a minimum of one and a half and a
maximum of five hours and took place either in the kitchen or
dining room of the farmer's home. All of the farmers we met were
men ranging in age from their thirties to their sixties. In one case
the wife was present at the interview and in two cases the wife and
son. We began the interview by putting things in context. We
explained that our work was being done as part of a PhD thesis to
understand the feed autonomy processes under way in the region.
The introductory question consisted in asking the farmer to tell us
the story of his farm and the changes that had occurred over time.
Next, the interviewer intervened to clarify some of the farmer's
remarks and to get the interview back on target. An interview
template had been drawn up beforehand and was refined in the
course of the survey. This template was broken down into themes
(i.e., livestock, feeding, crop rotation, and socioprofessional net-
works) and sub-themes (e.g., for the livestock part, one of the sub-
themes was the breed, which itself was subdivided into various
points such as cross-breeding, temperament, rusticity, and outlets
for the various products). The strategy used in conducting the
interview was to start with certain elements of the farm to un-
derstand the farmer's practices and the connections that they
 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13 5

entailed (e.g., the Belgian Blue breed involves the use of feed con- understand the mechanism of action. Third, we give substance to a
centrates for finishing) and the ways the farmers rearrange these theory of action by having our analysis of an individual trajectory
ties over time. The template served more as a reminder for the engage in a dialog with the elements seen in the other trajectories
interviewer than to structure the interview. The interviews were under investigation and shuttling between our results and the
recorded and fully transcribed. The exchanges that took place literature.
during the tours of the farms were not recorded. Instead, intensive
3. The trajectory from a pragmatic perspective: the case of
notes were taken during each tour and afterward, once the inter-
feed autonomy
viewer returned to his car. We stopped conducting new interviews
when we noticed that we had reached the point of data saturation,
Our contacts describe feed autonomy in terms of protein, forage,
that is to say, when we did not see any significant new elements
and feed. The process of achieving feed autonomy includes a set of
coming out of the interviews.
individual and collective efforts to regain control over animal feeding
We did the first coding to create categories of codes manually.
on farms and think about their dependence on protein. It revolves
Then, using these codes, we used the RQDA program to make
around the total or partial withdrawal of soybean cattle cake, which
managing our data set easier. The first manual coding consisted in
is conventionally used as a protein supplement in cattle rations, from
translating each farmer's individual trajectory into nodes and
the diet. The farmers state the problem of using soybean meal in
pathways. That means that we identified and situated in time the
cattle feed in several ways: Its price is volatile on a globalized mar-
series of and changes in practices so as to get a longitudinal vision
ket; the soybeans used in Europe are grown in South America and
of the trajectory. We then had the results of this first coding dialog
thus travel thousands of miles before being used on the farms; and
with the literature on conceptualizations of the trajectory. Our
the soybeans are a genetically modified crop (GMO), with all the
feeling at the time was that we had to force the data to fit them into
environmental and health uncertainties that plague genetic engi-
the categories and/or sequences proposed in the literature. The
neering. They juggle with various justifications, depending, for
argument of this paper sprouted from this observation. We then
example, if they are talking to colleagues or trying to explain their
proceeded with a second, line-by-line, manual coding for four in-
feed autonomy efforts to consumers. This dependence on soybeans
terviews. After that, we used the next fifteen interviews to refine
results from the fact that Europe historically delegated the produc-
the codes resulting from this second manual coding. Our method
tion of vegetable protein to the American continent e in particular
was close to the one that Emerson et al. (1995) describes for
following the agreements that came out of the 1961-62 Dillon Round
Grounded Theory. Our aim was to identify what mattered to the
of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). And so, in a
farmer and the ways of functioning that he implemented to solve
vast modernization effort, livestock farmers ended up using cattle
the practical problems of redirecting his trajectory. We used the
cake (made of soybeans) to adjust the protein balance in their cattle's
RQDA program so as to get a transverse view of the trajectories. The
diets, which are commonly composed of grasses and enriched with
codes that we created targeted actions rather than the states and/or
feed corn for energy e both usually grown on the farm.
objects between which it would be possible to infer relationships
(e.g., three codes were defined for the category labeled withdrawal: Why did we absolutely need soybeans for years? Because they
detachment; attachment-replacing; and attachment-tipping; four beat us to death with arguments in favor of using corn and corn
codes were defined for the event category: interruption, interpre- is highly deficient in protein, so we had to turn to soybeans,
tation, attention, shift). Our argument was drawn up through a which are extremely rich in protein, to compensate for the
constant shuttling between the analytical dimensions that came protein deficiency (A livestock farmer engaged in a feed au-
out of our coding work and the literature. tonomy process for five years).
Viewed in this way, analysis is at once inductive and deductive,
like someone who is simultaneously creating and solving a Withdrawing soybeans from the rations usually begins with two
puzzle, or like a carpenter alternately changing the shape of a actions. The first is to reduce the amount of corn in the rations in
door and then the shape of the door frame to obtain a better fit order to limit the protein imbalance that it creates. The second is to
(Emerson et al., 1995, p. 144). increase protein production on the farm by growing legumes (e.g.,
peas, alfalfa, and field beans). An intermediate action can be
implemented and involves the local purchase of concentrated
In this way, we propose an original interpretation of the tra-
products in the region (e.g., rapeseed cattle cake). This makes it
jectory. Our thinking is constructed in three stages. First, we
possible to replace soybeans without making protein intake
approach feed autonomy as an innovation that is structured around
directly dependent on the implementation of new forage produc-
withdrawing soybeans and corn from the livestock's diet. We show
tion techniques. So, the farmers proceed by substitution. First the
that feed autonomy is an occasion for an experience e in Dewey's
protein imbalance is reduced and then the diet is rebalanced by a
meaning of the word e to change one's relations with the soil,
feed source that performs a similar function to that of soybeans but
plants, livestock, and other humans and, through this experience,
either can be grown on the farm or is accessible locally. These two
the farmers reconnect harmful situations to a course of action.
actions are complementary. The livestock farmers explain that it is
Second, we analyze an individual trajectory so as to show that (1)
difficult to find a soybean substitute with a comparable protein
the withdrawal requires changes in practices, during which the
content and this difficulty consequently requires them to feed less
farmer's ideas of what may be good breeding practices gradually
corn as well. They thus explain how they detach themselves from
shift and (2) the farmer pays more heed to events that interrupt the
the “corn-soya couple”. As a rule, the fodder's nutritional value
course of action and create uncertainty so as to be able to reorient
decreases following the substitution, hindering the stabilization of
his action. Focusing on the description of a trajectory enables us to
this practice as such. The substitution will then structure a gradual,
follow the chain of actions and events as they occur in the indi-
holistic reorganization of work on the farm. Producing protein is
vidual without forcing us to give a sort of generic explanation. We
not enough, as one farmer says in the following excerpt; thinking
do not claim to give an exhaustive view of what feed autonomy in
about the practice as part of a whole is required:
all its diversity can be. Rather, we use the case of feed autonomy to
show how the actions of farmers taken as individuals may take So, I think that feed autonomy cannot be something simplistic
certain directions and be redirected. In other words, we seek to like it's the way to replace soya with something else. It's more
6 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13

complex … It is not something that is linked specifically to a
crop. I find it unpleasant when people take the shortcut and say:
“Listen, plant ray-grass and clover or clover by itself or plant
peas, something that is super rich in protein”. For me, that is not
what it is all about. You have to think inside a whole [system] (A
livestock farmer engaged in feed autonomy for five years).
On the one hand, the substitution will play a pivotal role in the
sense that it makes visible, through the search for feed autonomy, a
set of previously more discreet elements and processes on the farm,
e.g., soil health, plant associations, and the animals' hardiness. On the
other hand, the farmers explain conditions that enable them to make
and bolster these changes, such as inclusion in socioprofessional
collectives and marketing channels that are alternatives to super-
markets. Through feed autonomy the farmers consequent reexamine
their notions of what good livestock farming practices may be.
3.1. Feed autonomy and experience
When the farmers talk about feed autonomy, they do so ac-
cording to several registers: economic, technical, environmental,
ethical, in terms of the pleasure that they get in doing their jobs and
the pride that stems from their work, and in terms of their own and
consumer health. They speak of feed autonomy as a project that is
devised in reaction to the consequences of modernization on the
conditions of plying their trade. If we adopt Dewey's perspective, we
can say that the objects and processes of modernization have in part
cut the farmers off from their experience. More specifically, what the
farmers are talking about is related to the fact that the objects and
processes of modernization have in part locked farming into routines
that restrict the farmer's freedom of initiative and, in so doing, the
possibilities of individuation. To use the slightly provocative wording
of one farmer, it then becomes a matter of “redoing crop science in
agriculture”, that is to say, of rediscovering the use of techniques to
put agricultural practices to the test, notably because farming is full
of hesitations, variability, and surprises.
[Cropping in feed autonomy] is not as easy as sowing kernels of
corn, applying fertilizer and pesticides, and filling a huge silo.
You always have surprises, so you cannot apply recipes. For
planting corn you have a recipe. You open the seed merchant's
book, you known what fertilizers to use, the doses, sowing
dates, and weeding and then after that you let things grow and
you're fine (A livestock farmer engaged in a feed autonomy
process for four years).
First of all, as this farmer mentions in taking the example of corn
seed, a series of objects have been given set instructions for use,
protocols, and “recipes” to which the individual must submit. The
object is thus no longer an invitation to experiment. Rather, it takes
the form of a prescription or rule that is both stable and set by
structures outside the farm. As a result, technical farming decisions
are largely separated from the farmers, that is, the practitioners,
and even from the site of implementation. The farmers then ex-
press a feeling of dispossession and of “trajectories that are plotted
in advance”. This feeling is reinforced in a context in which the
farming advice on which the farmers depend heavily is provided by
sales representatives. As one farmer puts it in the following excerpt,
they are prisoners:
We need advice because we can't … the things that we have to
master are so vast that it isn't possible to know everything …
[So] the farmer will practically always seek guidance. There is
someone who'll come over. Who is it? It's his pesticide dealer.
The same goes for the nutrients. The same goes for the fertil-
izers. So, the system works like that and that explains why
things have evolved so little or why the changes have always
been in the direction of using more inputs, where we are bound
by the hybrid corn seeds, where we are bound by the pesticides,
weeding, fungicides … why? Because when you are advised by
the merchant, although the merchant may be the most honest
guy that exists, he cannot be objective; that's impossible (A
livestock farmer engaged in a feed autonomy process for six
years).
Next, the farmers explain being challenged by certain conse-
quences of their techniques and the changes in their business
without finding the resources within the conventional reference
frameworks that would enable them to change the situation. For
example, one farmer told how he increased his use of inputs to keep
up his corn yields but then noticed soil erosion. Another explained
how he saw a drop in the soil's humus content. Still another farmer
mentioned that the Belgian Blue breed e the jewel in Wallonia's
modern breeding crown e suffered from inbreeding due to selec-
tion practices that failed to ensure sufficient genetic mixing.
Even in Pop's day we saw erosion, soils that deteriorated, corn
yields that feel if you didn't increase the nitrogen doses. But we
didn't have the solutions (A livestock farmer engaged in a feed
autonomy process for eight years).
I had soil analyses done and all the soils had very low levels of
humus although it's a farm on which we've always had livestock
and cereal crops, so there was no reason for the humus levels to
fall. So the agricultural practices were very bad (A livestock
farmer involved in a feed autonomy process for four years).
The problem of the Belgian Blue is inbreeding. The dams don't
produce enough milk, the calves are hard to get nursing, much
more sensitive, less disease-resistant, no matter the disease, and
are underweight, too (A livestock farmer engaged in a feed au-
tonomy process for five years).
Being subjected to the situation without having access to the
resources required to change it is a deprivation of current experi-
ence but also jeopardizes later experience. In other words, the
“factory's plant” gets rusty and could compromise the future of the
business. All of these observations lead the farmers to wonder
about both the meaning and the direction of their activity and to
consider the fact that in an attempt to modernize farming, a whole
slew of responsibilities and abilities has been delegated to entities
outside the farm. So, they have the feeling that the trade has in a
way been emptied of some of its very essence.
The environment was an integral part of the work and then,
thanks to artifices, we were able to give up all that concern for
ecological balance. And because of changes in labor laws, the
cost of labor versus the cost of mechanization, and also because
of the establishment of the agro-industrial chain that freed the
farmer from having to worry about marketing his products,
agriculture was also emptied of its entire social dimension (A
livestock farmer engaged in a feed autonomy process for seven
years).
In this context of what we might call a shake-up of the con-
ventional professional model, the price of soybean cattle cake
skyrocketed several times around 2010e2012. These price fluctu-
ations activated the question of feed autonomy in the area of our
study, given that the high price of soybeans seriously complicated
 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13
the financial situations of many livestock farmers. Feed autonomy
thus offered the opportunity to reconnect with experience, to
reconnect a harmful situation to a course of action and explore
problems in which economic, social, and environmental issues
were intertwined:
[With feed autonomy] you could make huge savings and, in
addition, answer tons of questions or even attacks by society on
farmers. Stop buying soybean meal, stop planting corn to excess
and using nitrogen fertilizers. There are heaps of answers. On
the environmental level, too (A livestock farmer engaged in a
feed autonomy process for six years).
3.1.1Feed autonomy e an opportunity to reconnect with experience
Collective action was instrumental in activating the feed au-
tonomy issue on the territory that we studied. The individual ef-
forts that were made must thus be seen against this backdrop.
Three nature parks (Parc naturel des Plaines de l'Escaut, Parc
naturel du Pays des Collines, and Parc naturel r
egional Scarpe-Escaut)
ran a working group on “grass and feed autonomy” (“herbe et
autonomie fourrage re”) starting in 2010 as part of a cross-border
program of collaboration with France. Another working group
called “group for feed autonomy on our farms” (“groupe pour une
autonomie fourrage re de nos fermes”) was set up by an agricultural
trade union (FUGEA) in a neighboring region (around Ath, Belgium)
in 2012. Four farmers from this second working group took the
additional step of asking the administration for and getting the
status of “Regional Reference and Testing Centers” (“Centre de
Refe
rence et d’Expe rimentation”). They thus become eligible for
government funds to test feeding techniques and share the results
with the profession (through a written report, the presentation of
their findings at meetings, and visits to their farms). These four
farmers were also members of an agricultural cooperative, Cop-
rosain, that subsequently worked on translating and transmitting
the feed autonomy message to consumers. The first feed autonomy
trade fair was held in September 2014 in these working groups'
wake and was followed a year later by the feed autonomy forum.
Given the success of these two events, a second edition of the feed
autonomy trade fair took place in September 2016.
The institution of such collective action allowed a number of
things to take place: It stimulated exchanges of experience between
farmers; interested and attracted “independent” experts working
for associations, universities, and government institutions to come
and advise the farmers on forage production techniques and animal
nutrition, for example; and helped to legitimate the feed autonomy
efforts in the profession. The idea was not so much to develop a
feed autonomy model or to stabilize the practice, but rather to
identify the levers of action that each farmer could adjust, change,
and take over in the specific context of his farm.
A question-and-answer session is always interesting: “I've done
this, I've tried this or that, look out, that hasn't been done …” I,
for my part, have always said: “If you have five interesting mi-
nutes in an evening, you come out ahead”. You can't remember
everything, you can't know everything, and not everything is
interesting. Not everything can be transposed from a meeting to
a farm. We are all different. We are all different on our farms but
there is always a little point that may be useful or that you can
improve (A livestock farmer engaged in a feed autonomy pro-
cess for five years).
Several farmers also explained that they had been influenced by
organic farmers, most of whom had come from the pasture regions
of Wallonia (organic farming was barely present in the area that we
studied).
7
Why did I switch towards … in my system with much fewer
inputs without being organic? Because my advisers were col-
leagues, organic farmers, as luck would have it ….I saw that they
got really encouraging results while using very little, even no,
fertilizer at all, by reintroducing legumes in the forage, whether
clover, alfalfa, peas, vetch, etc., and so I saw that there was
definitely a way to produce more economically than the system
we commonly use and that I was using on my operation and was
not even really giving me satisfaction when it came to the level
of the results, especially cattle health, with corn and supple-
ments (A livestock farmer engaged in a feed autonomy process
for six years).
Some farmers also said that they were inspired by the pasture
rotation techniques developed by Andre  Pochon in Brittany
(France). Moreover, Pochon spoke at the feed autonomy forum in
2015. Still others told us that the agricultural machinery used in soil
conservation was helpful for sowing forage mixtures … So, the
farmers shuttled back and forth between various collectives and
repertoires of practices to identify resources to connect a problem
situation to a course of action. Seen from this angle, feed autonomy
was an opportunity for the farmers to reconnect with the experi-
ence from which they felt cut off. The farmers noticed, sometimes
with astonishment, but with pleasure, too, the effects of the prac-
tices that they implemented as a result:
I stopped using chemical fertilizers and to my great astonish-
ment my plots' productivity did not especially fall off (A live-
stock farmer engaged in a feed autonomy process for four years).
It's lots more fun to produce naturally, as I'd put it ….I am much
less afraid of opening my door [to visitors; now I can] say: “Well
here you are, we are trying to have as little impact on the
environment and be has natural as possible”. Although every-
thing is not organic, you know (A livestock farmer engaged in a
feed autonomy process for five years).
On the whole the herd is in better shape; they have shinier
coats, nevertheless, I can see that, and are much healthier […]
With the nitrogen surplus well a lot of the stock had much more
diarrhea [So, the stock] put on less weight, soiled themselves
much more, so all the problems that are added on around that,
that increase the risk of mange … And here today, with the al-
falfa, the stock is in better shape, also in terms of their intake and
rumination […] There were periods with the ray-grass that you
had to be careful when you walked behind [a cow], you had to
keep your distance because if a cow coughed you were sprayed,
or if it shit, the stuff was so liquid that, well, we were constantly
being spattered (A livestock farmer engaged in a feed autonomy
process for the past five years).
What is more, the farmers we met mobilized at least one
alternative to the classic supermarket sales outlets to sell part,
even all, of their output. These included farm shops, short chains,
and quality mass distribution chains. While feed autonomy cuts
production costs, it also tends to be accompanied by lower pro-
duction volumes. Selling products of differentiated quality (i.e.,
justified in particular by the fact that the cattle were grass-fed) via
alternative marketing channels was a way to offset the loss of
income linked to the lower production volumes by increasing the
products' profit margins. In taking such a tack, the farmers said
that they were securing their incomes, which were now less
subject to unforeseen variations in both production and sales
prices.
8 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13
You don't necessarily increase your income, but you make it
more secure. You're going to have a constant and relatively high
profit margin on a relatively small volume (A livestock farmer
who turned to feed autonomy seven years ago).
We have just drawn the broad picture of what is at work in the
feed autonomy processes that we observed and can be summarized
as follows: reconnecting with experience. Now let us take a closer
look at how the experience is conducted to change the process at
work in the situation little by little, how the farmers learn to act
differently and reorient their trajectories. In other words, let's
examine the mechanisms of action.
All the farmers whom we met were different. The direction
given to the feed autonomy trajectory depended on the context of
each farm and givens such as the available acreages, type of oper-
ation (suckler farming, finishing of young bulls, or dairy farming),
and individual sensitivities. Some of the farmers turned more to-
wards producing their feed concentrates on the farm, whereas
others turned to rotational grazing techniques. The degree of feed
autonomy varied from one farm to the next with the degree of
progress the farmer had made in advancing along his trajectory but
also in line with this context. For example, it is more difficult to do
without commercial concentrates when the operation revolves
around finishing young bulls than suckler farming. The animals'
dietary requirements are not the same. As we indicated previously,
in this article we are not trying to give an exhaustive overview of
the diversity of autonomy trajectories that exist. We are trying to
show the mechanism of action involved. These mechanisms, such
as we conceive of them, are transverse, that is, they are found across
all the trajectories.
3.2. Analysis of a trajectory
In this section we describe the trajectory of a specific livestock
farmer. First, we seek to understand how adaptations in the prac-
tice and conceptions of livestock farming gradually took shape
through learning and experimentation, through the implementa-
tion of new techniques and forms of organization. We shall then
examine how learning is organized. This farmer could be said to be
one of the pioneers of feed autonomy in the area that we studied.
We chose to present his trajectory because his relatively long feed
autonomy experience makes the mechanisms of action particularly
visible.
3.2.1. Tipping points in livestock farming practices
This livestock farmer explained how he took his first steps to-
wards feed autonomy by planting alfalfa in 2002. He then experi-
mented with lupin. He deemed these crops to be sensitive (e.g.,
planting difficulties). The results were variable and inconclusive:
“On paper, as a replacement for soya, lupin has approximately the
same protein value; in practice it is different”. He became interested
in organic farming techniques and met farmers who “introduced
him to mixing plants”. He sowed rows of forage mixtures from 2006
and crossed the “zero corn threshold” in 2007. The mixed crops
proved more resistant and their productivity was more stable. He
sowed mixtures in field plots (e.g., triticale, oats, peas) and hay
meadows (e.g., alfalfa, red clover, grasses). The farmer thus achieved
a switch that consisted in balancing the fodder better by using
mixtures of crops in order to shake off the logic of systematically
compensating for corn, which is energy-rich but protein-deficient.
However, the cropping techniques thus implemented also
entailed costs and labor for plowing, sowing, storage, and distri-
bution, costs that he considered high. At the same time, he was
supervising a trainee whose father, a local farmer, practiced
rotational grazing (i.e., intensive grazing of micro-plots with fast
rotation that includes a rest period for the meadow). This
encounter turned him toward rotational grazing, a complex tech-
nique: “It took me five years to learn; every year I made the stupid
mistake of overgrazing”. His ultimate aim then became to feed his
cows exclusively on pasture grasses (i.e., pastures based on ray-
grass and white clover) for the longest possible period of the year
(i.e., from March to November, or even longer, depending on the
soil's carrying capacity). He explained switching from a “perspective
of harvesting and storage” to one of “stock on the hoof”, i.e., the
meadow, grazed directly by the cows, except for the winter feed,
which was composed of forage from hay meadows adjusted by a
concentrate that came from a blend of crops.
Now let us look at an earlier phase in this farmer's trajectory. In
1993 he and his wife took over the family farm. Starting in 1994, he
introduced Jerseys and gradually withdrew his Holsteins from his
dairy herd. He was interested in one characteristic of the Jersey
cow, namely, its rich milk (“it's at 5.5 for fat and 4.2 for protein, it's
roughly 25% richer than the Holstein's”) to transform the milk fat into
butter. In 2000, he began selling butter, yogurt, and fresh cheese
sold door to door. In 2004, he opened a store on the farm, followed
(more recently) by a butcher's shop. He began converting to organic
farming in 2007. He registered with a quality program so as to in-
crease his profits on his products. He was interested in the real
income of the business, not the turnover seen as a production
volume calculated per cow (in the latter, the “Jersey is not the
champion; it produces 4000e4500 L of milk”). Rather, his reasoning
was as follows: “We nevertheless manage to produce 300,000 L of
milk on 30 ha; we are special because we have Jerseys, so we produce
milk that is still sold for twice as much as conventional milk because it
is organic and very rich”. So, he effected a switch and redefined the
notion of productivity, notably by evaluating his yield per hectare
and thus reasserting its tie to the land.
The issue of the connection to the land is particularly explicit
when he talks about his beef herd. His father had a herd of mixed
Belgian-Blues. He first selected his livestock to obtain a double-
muscled Belgian-Blue that was “almost at competition standard”.
Nevertheless, he said, “they were fine on grass but they remained lean
… they needed more energy density so they were fed with more corn
plus soymeal or concentrates”. In addition, raising the double-
muscled Belgian-Blues prevents converting to organic farming,
because it requires the almost systematic use of cesarean sections,
which are proscribed by organic farming specifications (i.e., the
terms of reference for organic agriculture set in the Belgian Royal
Decree of October 30, 1998, stipulates a compulsory natural calving
rate of more than 80% after five years of conversion, thereby ruling
out the double-muscled Belgian Blue model, since the selection of
extra-meaty animals has effectively led to the model's in-
compatibility with natural calving). He consequently introduced
the Salers on his farm in 2007, explaining: “… to generate value from
grass in the meadows it is ideal, it's a bit like the Jersey; at the moment
it is not the most meaty”. He added: “The advantage of hardy breeds
like this is that they have tremendous longevity … they are known to
bear ten calves per cow, for ten years in a row, so I do not have to
renew the herd”. By taking this tack he reduced the number of an-
imals out of production. In addition, he reoriented his activity,
going from fattening bull calves for slaughter at 18e22 months e in
compliance with large retailers' standards e to producing castrated
males and females for slaughter at three years, along with calves. By
these various actions, he linked the quantity and quality of feed-
stuffs available on the farm and the animals' needs. He effected a
switch in which he synchronized his land and rearing operations.
We thus identify several switches: positioning the balance in the
feed, departing from a harvesting and storage perspective, rede-
fining the notion of yield, and synchronizing his land management
 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13
and livestock production. Other switches also exist. For example,
boosting the use of clover e which has the ability to fix the nitrogen
in the air in the soil, calls for reconsidering the use of synthetic
nitrogen e which acts to the detriment of clover, and thus devel-
oping another view and way of managing soil amendment. These
changeovers take place during feed autonomy practices' imple-
mentation. A series of connected withdrawals and attachments
occurs. The feed autonomy practices reinforce and interact with
each other. For example, withdrawing corn and soybeans from the
rations entails a decrease in production volumes that can be offset
by getting extra income from better product quality, which is itself
justified by the livestock's differentiated diet. The conversion to
organic agriculture stabilizes the removal of corn by the elimina-
tion of pesticides, and the withdrawal of Belgian Blue by the
elimination of C-sections. These rearrangements create irrevers-
ibilities. Fattening the Belgian Blue bull is no longer really an option.
What is more, we noticed a constant redefinition of the ends and
means along the trajectory. More specifically, each experience is an
end in itself that turns into a means for the subsequent experience.
In so doing, it takes part in redefining the direction given to the
trajectory as the action unfolds. For example, growing alfalfa and
lupin is first of all an end in itself. It then becomes a means to
achieve mixed forage, and so on and so forth, until rotational
grazing is implemented. So, the direction that the trajectory takes is
constantly being reassessed according to the various experiences
and experiments' outcomes; it is never totally foreseen. Feed au-
tonomy is no longer the same when the farmer talks about rota-
tional grazing as when he talks about replacing soya with alfalfa or
lupin.
Finally, when the farmer explained how he worked on his tra-
jectory, he referred to events that marked the path he took: He
crossed the zero corn threshold, met a farmer who practiced
rotational grazing, etc. The events provide handholds for under-
standing the successive changes made in trajectory's direction, the
gradual nature of the transition and learning.
3.2.2. Events that interrupt the course of action and attention
The farmer structured the narrative of his trajectory by
describing events that combined and linked up during his transi-
tion. We understand the event as a fact that interrupts the course of
the action. It is situated in a story. It punctuates the story's progress.
It makes sense, at a given moment, in a project that the farmer is
trying to build. The project is conceived of as a set of scenarios
based on patterns and trends that enables him to expect a certain
trajectory. The event creates a break in a scenario and destabilizes
it. It has an unexpected character. It shatters routines. It thus be-
comes a matter of coping with uncertainties. Managing uncertainty
calls for special attention in order to interpret events and adjust or
redirect one's action. As a result, what is taken to be an event de-
pends on the attention given to it, and attention is being surprised,
taking the unexpected effects of the action and variability into ac-
count. According to this approach, learning is the result of what
surprises, of what creates doubt. The scenarios, ends, and means
are constantly redefined.
So, the events of which the farmer spoke were sometimes het-
erogeneous in nature and we shall not attempt here to order them
in any way. According to our methodological position, the event is a
fact, something that happens and of which the farmer's attention
will make sense.
Let us take one example, that of the transition that the farmer
made to adapt cattle breeds, going from the Belgian Blue to the
Salers. He explained the change by a contingent event. He was
supervising a French student who had Salers on his farm: “I had
never thought of Salers, and he told us about them, so we went to see.
We went to the Cantal, we went to the breeders' show twice, we ate the
9
meat there, to see if the breed could adapt [to our operation]”. He
linked this event to others that occurred later, such as taking the
trip to the Cantal. He also spoke of previous events, such as the
conversion to organic farming, the withdrawal of corn and soya,
etc., that the Belgian Blue made more complicated. The event had
meaning only through its connection with other events. The con-
version to organic farming, withdrawal of corn and soybeans, etc.,
led the farmer to pay attention to breeds other than the Belgian
Blue. This attention enabled him to notice the trainee's remarks
about the Salers; it made them stand out. The isolated event thus
does not have an intrinsic meaning; the farmer himself gives it
meaning in a project. Similarly, the event is seen as positive or
negative depending on its position with respect to other events. The
encounter with the trainee who spoke to him about Salers desta-
bilized the Belgian Blue but bolstered the conversion to organic
farming and the withdrawal of corn and soybeans.
Furthermore, the greater attention that he paid to other breeds
was linked to the fact that the farmer already had an inkling of the
consequences of continuing with the Belgian Blue. The Belgian Blue
demands established practices e cesarean sections and feed con-
centrates e that jeopardized the smooth progress of his “rebuilding
project”. When he turned to the Salers, he established a new sce-
nario, a hypothesis based on his experience in the Cantal. To vali-
date this hypothesis, he had to confront it with the herd's actual
performance on his farm, with events that, this time, reinforced or
encouraged the scenario, for, as he ascertained, the Salers were easy
to handle, could be fattened on grass, and did not require special
monitoring for calving. He was also interested in another property
of the Salers, namely, its ability to be crossbred. First, he said: “I told
myself if I'm wrong and it doesn't work out with the Salers, and we
can't resell them, either, we will crossbreed. If we make two crosses we
will end up back with the Belgian Blue, because it can deliver the
double-muscled calves easily”. He therefore drew up an alternative
scenario in which the Salers were a reversible choice. He made
allowance for a future event that could interrupt the course of ac-
tion. On the other hand, crossbreeding the stock could produce
heavier calves, which was economically interesting. So, he kept one
Belgian Blue bull and systematized crossbreeding for animals
intended for market, while maintaining the herd of pure Salers. As
he put it, “… the crosses are not for breeding; the crosses are for the
butcher”. In this scenario, the property of being able to be crossbred
reinforces the choice of Salers. That being so, the farmer's attention
was situated in one of two sequences of events: The Salers scenario
would be either confirmed or cut short. The property itself does not
change, it is the attention given to it in a scenario that makes it
gradually become valid as the play unfolds.
Let's take a second example, that of when the farmer explained
how to coordinate grazing and grass growth by relying on topping.
Topping consists in making a quick pass on the meadow early in the
season to start the pasture rotation and get a jump on the peak
grass growth in May. The cows remain on the pasture for a short
time, to clean it, and then move to the next one, and so on. In this
case, the dairy herd was rotated over about thirty pastures. The
grass starts growing after the cows have grazed it down, so that this
rotation creates a lag in the growth of grass between pastures: “We
produce a stepped regrowth pattern”. He explained how he did two
quick passes to produce this lag. To achieve the desired result, the
farmer must monitor the soil's carrying capacity. He must monitor
the grass height in order to enter the meadow at the right time and
not leave it too late, on pain of overgrazing. He must monitor the
livestock load in order to take action at the right time and follow the
scenario in which the grass growth is offset between plots and rank
patches are managed by grazing. If, for example, the cows are
turned out on the meadow too late “the grass has already started
growing, the cows graze as much as they can but they can no longer
10 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13
keep up. So you can rotate them all you want, but the cows will graze
on what interests them and leave what doesn't alone. Then the un-
touched plants go to seed and are nevertheless not grazed at the next
rotation, and off we go for a cycle of rejection, excess, and shortage”.
From this farmer's point of view, you have to adjust the time scales.
He has to take care to stick to an appropriately short time frame e
the moment of turning the cows out to graze e in a long time frame
e the grazing season e in order to manage the meadow's stock “in
living systems that are difficult to establish” and take a long time to
recover. He must take variability into account. The date on which
the cows are turned out is not the same from one year to the next.
Making a mistake in the turn-out date (for example) becomes an
event that destabilizes the smooth running of the scenario and in
which the farmer develops his attention: He learns to observe and
take action.
Attention is therefore a kind of state of active watchfulness that
scrutinizes the unfolding course of things for what could be an
event, just as one scans the sky for signs of a coming storm, and in
which the farmer learns to draw inferences from non-apparent
relations that are hidden behind what is apparent, inferences that
enable him to foresee the consequences of his actions. Or, in the
words of Dewey (2012 [1925]), the act of “taking cognizance, which
means to pay heed to the apparent in terms of non-apparent con-
sequences” (p. 300), allowing for the fact that “any object that is as
so invested has hidden potential consequences” (p.51) (our trans-
lation). The feed autonomy approach is predicated on coming to
terms and negotiating with complex objects, living objects, for
which the farmer must develop special attention, bearing in mind
that these objects are never completely predictable.
4. A dialog between the farmer and his practices: towards a
recomposition of good farming
We have laid the foundations of a theory of action by taking
inspiration from Dewey's concept of experience and adopting a
pragmatist's notion of action. We started by showing that feed
autonomy was an opportunity for farmers to reconnect a harmful
situation to a course of action and reconnect with experience. We
then focused on describing what experience might be through fine
analysis of an individual trajectory. We showed that experience was
attended by changes in the farmer's conceptions of good breeding
practices. We also introduced the fact that learning results from a
relationship between events and the attention that the farmer
develops to spot these events, give them meaning, and link them to
a course of action. We shall now give substance to this theory of
action by means of a dialog between our findings and positions in
the literature and documenting more certain aspects that until now
we have merely introduced from the analysis of an individual
trajectory.
First we explained that identifying and taking the crossing
points that enabled the farmer to bypass the use of soya and corn
formed a structural element for the farmer that enabled him to
wonder about the properties of feeds and feeding techniques,
breeds, and livestock farming, or even the business's profitability
and marketing channels. Feed autonomy can thus be understood as
an innovation through withdrawal such as is described in soil
conservation agriculture (Goulet and Vinck, 2012), an innovation in
which the withdrawal eliminates an instance of intermediation and
provides an opportunity to make connections with heretofore un-
known elements and processes (Goulet and Vinck, 2016). A similar
observation is found in conservation agriculture, where the
perception of a living soil acts as a tipping point and induces a
reconfiguration of cognitive processes and practices to strengthen
the irreversibility of the detachment from plowing
(Vankeerberghen and Stassart, 2016). Hence, as Goulet and Vinck
(2012) suggest, the withdrawal depends on rendering visible or
invisible the various elements and processes to which mechanisms
of attachment and detachment are connected.
You have to accept that at certain periods in the year you'll have
less productivity than in a conventional system where you sow
and fertilize and everything grows all by itself. In fact, the
fundamental principle is that if you put nitrogen fertilizers on
legumes, you put them to sleep, and on the contrary you boost
the growth of grasses, which taken over and smother [the le-
gumes]. That means that, in practice, you're in the month of
April, your neighbors have spread 100 kg of nitrogen on Italian
or English ray-grass, which turns completely blue and grows like
crazy, and you, you watch your mixture of clover and ray-grass,
you watch it and it waits for warmer days. In any event, in the
first years, after the ground is used to supporting legumes,
things get better, but the transition itself is a bit complicated. So,
you have to wait for May, when the temperatures rise, for the
clover to grow, and then you have an explosion … It's difficult to
accept such consequences. You really have to do some work [on
yourself] (A livestock farmer engaged in a feed autonomy pro-
cess for six years).
Acting differently thus calls for interpreting a whole series of
signs, events, and consequences of actions according to criteria that
differ from those of conventional agriculture. As the farmer shows
in the preceding excerpt, he has to accept less productivity with
forage mixtures at certain points in the season. That means that he
must interpret this consequence as being part of the normal pro-
cess. To do that, he proceeds, not without difficulty, to render
invisible what the growth of ray-grass might be at the same period
in the case of conventional monocropping and renders visible the
time frame that he must use when observing the productivity of
mixed forage: The associations wait for the temperatures to rise as
the season advances and their productivity improves from one year
to the next as the soils become used to the presence of legumes.
Recognizing this time frame must be learned. The eye must in a way
be guided and trained. Some farmers, for example, explained that
they couldn't help spreading nitrogen fertilizers on their mixed
forage the first year, as a result of which the legumes vanished. In so
doing, they cut themselves off from experience by using the ray-
grass model to interpret the time frame and cultivation of mixed
forage. That is what prompts us to say that the farmers learn to
develop their attention to interpret and give events specific
meaning in a specific course of action. To do that, they must take in
the consequences of the action, as this farmer explains regarding
weed management and crop choices:
You generally become smarter by doing. Like that, I have the
example of a barley-pea field that I had planted the first year,
telling myself: “Well, with that I am going to have a high-energy
mix and …” They were field peas, so the mix was very rich in
energy and protein. And I had a mix that was rich in energy, but
since the crop was not dense enough or, if you prefer, the barley
shoots emerged faster than the peas, well, I also got a ton of
weeds. So, for the next crop the weeds came back, so I finally had
to reinstate clover and ray-grass in several fields to control, by
mowing, all the weed problems that were linked to the crop that
I had put in maybe three years earlier. So, when it comes to such
problems, now I know, and that is also what justifies the field
beans [at the time of the interview he was testing field beans in
his fields] because field beans are very dense, they smother
everything. So, you have to find your path (A livestock farmer
engaged in a feed autonomy process for five years).
 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13
More generally, the farmers explained that they learned by
groping in the dark, by testing hypotheses and adjusting plans of
action: “I try to find my way by trial and error”, by serendipity or
from your peers: “[You go] see what the others are doing on their
operations and I'd say that they provide ourselves with our own in-
formation and various experiences”, or even through conversations
with “independent” advisors. Wondering about your own practices
means accepting a share of surprises, the unexpected, variability,
and doubt, that you have to scrutinize. On the one hand, surprise
generates experience, that is to say, letting oneself be surprised
interrupts a course of action, which must then be reoriented. On the
other hand, experience trains attention, and sharing experience is
sharing plans of action and interpretations of events that serve as
guides for one's attention. Consequently, we understood action and
learning to be the results of a dialog between the farmer and his
practices, between his attention and events. This attention is
formed and reformed in a course of action and the events become
events once they become the objects of attention. Analyzing the
farmers' trajectories from this point of view reveals that the farmers
never foresee the direction that the trajectory takes completely and
are constantly redefining their ends and means. What is more,
treating the event in conjunction with the attention paid to it
prevents one from isolating it from its context of action. Treating
the event by considering the host of actions in which it is tangled
enables one to treat the manifestations of the event non-
teleologically, as certain authors in historical sociology suggest
(Sewell, 1996; Griffin, 1993).
Through this matter of attention giving meaning to an event,
feed autonomy is not just a technical issue; it confronts notions of
what good livestock farming practices are. Carolan (2006) tells us
how the tension between “visible” and “invisible” takes part in the
debate between sustainable and conventional agriculture. He re-
veals what he calls epistemic barriers to sustainable agriculture,
that is to say, beneficial aspects that are not directly or easily
perceptible. He explains that knowledge e how and what one
knows e is formed in particular through social interactions and
thus determines how and what one sees.
Growing corn on the farm and buying protein, typically soybean
cattle cake, is a practice that has been stabilized in norms and
values. It is taught in the agricultural schools, universities, or at a
young age when farm children calculate feed rations with their
fathers. It is recommended on the farms by the nutritionists who
often work for feed merchants as well. It symbolizes agricultural
intensity and good farming in so-called conventional agriculture.
One farmer, for example, explained some neighboring farmers'
reactions when he reoriented his business and opted for feed au-
tonomy. They interpreted the change that he made as an act of
betrayal of the profession and the family legacy:
In the beginning they lashed out at me, saying: “Your grandfa-
ther and your father were people who were at the forefront,
they were champions in their field and you, you … you swept it
away like that” (A livestock farmer engaged in a feed autonomy
process for seven years).
According to Burton (2004), agriculture is in part a “front stage”
activity. For example, the fields are visible to neighboring farmers
and, so, their appearance has a symbolic value that gives the farmer
a certain position in the community. His identity as a “good farmer”
depends on this position. In the context of field crops, Lamine
(2011b) distinguishes two different positions adopted by farmers
when it comes to reinforcing environmental standards: looking
ahead or, on the contrary, stalling. She shows that the farmers who
used integrated crop protection and tend to look ahead as they
11
carry out their transition towards reduced reliance on pesticides
must also learn to distance themselves from certain symbols of
good farming, e.g., crop yield, neatness, and regularity. She goes on
to explain the importance that collectives have in legitimating
innovation in the profession and reconstructing an identity that is
defined both for oneself and for others.
According to our approach, the epistemic barriers that Carolan
(2006) discusses become permeable in the dialog between the
farmer and her/his practices through the work of rendering things
visible or invisible that takes place in redirecting her/his course of
action. This dialog also provides the context in which one's identity
as a “good farmer” is revisited and the farmers distance themselves
from certain symbols of good farming. Their legitimation as pro-
fessionals, for its part, occurs through collective action. Just as an
aside, we believe, for example, that the feed autonomy trade fair
was not called “salon professionel de l'autonomie fourrag ere” (feed
autonomy trade fair) purely by chance. It clearly targeted the
profession. While tensions with conventional farming obviously
subsist, feed autonomy does not oppose the conventional sector, in
the sense that it is an umbrella for a set of diffuse and rather
informal transition strategies and is not part of a normative con-
version approach. That means that its implementation is open to
that much more diversity while its definition and the repositioning
of the farmers in the profession are also quite ambiguous. Feed
autonomy is not a practice that is codified by terms of reference and
overseen by a certifying body, as organic agriculture is. Whereas
some people see feed autonomy as a gateway to organic agriculture
(in particular because the parties involved in feed autonomy are
inspired by a whole series of organic techniques), the professional
movement that is taking shape around feed autonomy is quite
separate from organic farming. Moreover, for others, organic
farming simply is not an option. In fact, most of the farmers whom
we met positioned themselves as both being in continuity with and
breaking away from conventional agriculture. So, some of the
farmers made what at first glance were contradictory statements,
such as:
It is actually a principle of this farm that we are still in con-
ventional farming but very often take inspiration from organic
techniques, and that is also what led me to feed autonomy for
the livestock. It's because I have lots of friends who are organic
and I saw things on their operations that raised questions in my
mind … [He goes on to say later on] I find organic farming to be
slightly fundamentalist. It seems to me that society as a whole
benefits from the advances made in science and chemistry, and
if you sow a cereal and it's attacked by a disease, you prohibit
yourself from reacting and your harvest is nil (A livestock farmer
engaged in a feed autonomy process for six years).
As we showed previously, a reconnection with experience is at
work. In this sense, feed autonomy does not oppose the objects and
processes of modernization as such, but challenges rather certain
ties that they take for granted and lock agriculture into a sort of
routine with sometimes disastrous consequences over which the
farmers have very little control. So, these objects and processes
definitely have a place when they are included in decisions about
agricultural practices on the farm and in building a personal proj-
ect. Feed autonomy thus belongs to a dimension other than the
resistance of peasantry per se and the dichotomy between peas-
antry and entrepreneurship does not allow one to describe what
the farmers in our study are in the process of building. The borders
between these categories as conceptualized by van der Ploeg
(2008) are, moreover, already being questioned in the literature
(Niska et al., 2012; Stock and Forney, 2014). To conclude, we can say
that the reconstruction of good farming revolves around the ability
12 D. Bredart, P.M. Stassart / Journal of Rural Studies 53 (2017) 1e13
to “demonstrate very advanced technical skills”, so as to be able to
bring decision-making about agricultural practices back to the farm
and reconnect a harmful situation to a course of action. So, there is
research that shows a recomposition of “good farming”, for
instance, in organic agriculture that takes shape in opposition to
conventional agriculture and is centered around “reflexive” prac-
tice that includes environmental and health concerns as well as, in
certain cases, the evolution of “good farming” in conventional
farming, notably in connection with input-reducing strategies, in a
context that is characterized by great economic uncertainty for the
farmers and society's environmental and multifunctionality de-
mands of agricultural activity (Stock, 2007; Hunt, 2010; Sutherland
and Darnhofer, 2012; Sutherland, 2013; Saunders, 2016).
5. Conclusions
We have described and analyzed feed autonomy by trying to
understand it from the farmer's point of view. We first introduced
the case of feed autonomy by presenting it as an innovation process
that is structured around the removal of soya and corn from cattle
rations. We have shown that feed autonomy creates the opportu-
nity for an experience by means of which the farmers' relations
with the soil, plants, animals, and other humans change and the
farmers try to reconnect harmful situations to a course of action
based on their experience. We then focused on describing, in fine
detail, the trajectory of one livestock farmer with two aims in mind.
First, we wanted to track the switches in his farming practice (i.e.,
reconfigurations of cognitive processes and practices); adaptations
that went back and forth as he gradually implemented the feed
autonomy process. Second, we delved into events that interrupted
the course of action and created uncertainty, requiring the farmer
to pay them heed, to hone his attention in order to deal with
variability and orient his actions. According to our approach,
learning is therefore the result of surprises, of what destabilizes the
farmer and raises doubt in her/his mind about her/his practices.
Finally, we showed that in this dialog relationship between event
and attention, between the farmer and her/his practices, previously
more discreet elements and practices became visible and thus
participated in a gradual rethinking of what a good farming practice
was. In so doing, we equipped the trajectory with a theory of action
in a pragmatic perspective.
Our approach to the trajectory differs from the conceptualiza-
tions that rely on a systemic anchoring in which the event is the
trigger, and involve a sequential, mechanical vision of change. We
have shown that an event becomes an event from the moment that
the farmer pays attention to it. The event therefore has no meaning
in itself; rather, the farmer gives it meaning through an action, so
that the farmer can give a different meaning to the same event
depending on the action in which s/he is involved. Furthermore, we
have shown that events interrupt scenarios (i.e., expectations based
on patterns or trends) in a project that the farmer is trying to build,
scenarios that the farmer gradually makes and remakes, which
implies a constant redefinition of the project and the ends and
means in the course of the action. This result also challenges the
trajectory that is conceptualized according to a systemic anchoring
and considers the farms' transitions as passing from one state of
equilibrium to another. That is to say that such a conceptualization
assumes that, following a rupture caused by the triggering event,
the farmer redefines her/his goals and goes through a certain linear
sequence of stages to achieve these goals and equilibrium gradu-
ally. In the opposite case, the means themselves are questioned and
the farmer returns to a previous stage in the trajectory. In our
approach, surprise does not cause failure in the sense of back-
pedaling to a previous stage, but rather, leads to learning and
constant readjustment of the pathway. We propose a method that
puts learning, instead of the system, at the center of the matter of
transitions and allows departure from a sequential vision of change
and therefore also from the artifice of clear borders between
sequences.
Funding sources
This research was funded by the AgricultureIsLife agricultural
ge e Gembloux
research support cell (“CARE”), University of Lie
Agro-Bio Tech, Belgium.
Acknowledgments
We should like to thank the farmers whom we met in the course
of this study. Without them, this research would not have been
possible. We also should like to thank the students of the inter-
university certificate on agroecology and transition (“agroe cologie
et transition vers des syste mes agroalimentaires durables”) for
their contribution. The second interviews of the five farmers whom
we met twice were conducted as part of this certificate, which the
authors helped to supervise. See Ansenne, A-S., Bertherlier, J.,
Coomans de Brache ne, Y., de Riollet de Morteuil, E., Ghanem, A.,
Lejeune-Santoni, L., Lesne, R., Marot, F., Moreau, J., Palayan, D., Van
Mol, J., 2016. “Dynamiques et de marches d'autonomie en syste mes
de polycultures e levage en Hainaut occidental.” http://www.
certificat-agroecologie.ulg.ac.be/doc/agroecolab_2016.pdf We
should like to thank Professor Marc Mormont (SEED, University of
ge) for his invaluable assistance in the writing of this article. We
Lie
should like to thank the three reviewers and the editor, whose
comments enabled us to improve the first version of this paper
greatly. Finally, we should like to thank John Pearson and Gabrielle
Leyden for the English translation of the paper.
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