Pour une approche sociotechnique de la « gestion de la qualité de l'eaupar l'agriculture

Abstract

Agricultural research is under increasing pressure to deal with complex issues involving varying degrees of uncertainty and urgency. Such is in particular the case for environmental issues, product quality and conservation of natural resources. To address such issues, research needs to adopt a new approach to scientific investigation and get more extensively involved in real-life on-site situations. These issues consist of a mix of technical, social and organisational dimensions which need to be articulated. This can be achieved within the framework of a ‘socio-technical’ problematic. How do researchers stand in relation to this problematic? How is research organised to address the problematic? To what extent do researchers need to engage in the change processes which they analyse and what are the consequences of such an engagement? The authors have attempted to draw some guidelines for the management and evaluation of interdisciplinary research on environmental issues in agriculture from the analysis of four research projects on water quality and farming practices. They propose an analytical framework based on a model designed to investigate a socio-technical innovation process. The framework takes into consideration the context in which the environmental question has emerged, the reformulating of the question into a research problematic, the type of engagement of the actors and the way the research is operated (team composition, relations with the actors). Three types of results are also considered : knowledge produced, change in farming practices and effects on the natural and social systems. Developing a socio-technical problematic has shown itself to be a necessity in defining new farming practices and proposing individual as well as collective conditions for their implementation. Choosing this type of problematic entails several provisions, in particular the need to articulate laboratory and field investigations, to negotiate the research design with the actors, and to steer the research process by constantly taking into account achievements, failures and opportunities.