Transition Pathways of Agroecological Innovation in Portugal’s Douro Wine Region. A Multi-Level Perspective

Fabíola Sostmeyer Polita,Lívia Madureira

doi:10.3390/land10030322

Abstract

The Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) is an analytical framework developed to explain transitions towards sustainability. This article aims to contribute to enhancing the use of the MLP to understand the transitions towards sustainability in agriculture. We propose that MLP is an insightful framework to capture particular micro-level trajectories of adopting innovations. The Douro wine region in Northern Portugal, known worldwide for the wines that are produced there, was the study area of our empirical research. This region has become the stage for developing a complex agroecological innovation, the Ecological Infrastructures (EIs). These consist of a combination of techniques that aim to expand the ecosystem services of the vineyards. The uniqueness of its development at the farm level originates a multiplicity of innovation trajectories, which are the focus of this study. Content analysis of 20 interviews with winegrowers was performed, and the results were analysed through the MLP framework. This allowed us to conclude that a process of transition towards the sustainability of region-level winegrowing is underway, and that it can be explained by the overlapping of different paths of adopting innovation. Our research shows that in-depth analysis of qualitative data, done through content analysis, can be used to amplify the insightfulness of MLP by enabling it to uncover the microscale transition pathways that shape uneven region-level transitions.

Highlights

In order to analyse empirical cases of sociotechnical transitions triggered by innovation, scientists have been using an approach called Multi-Level Perspective (MLP)
In order to contribute to the strand of studies that make use of the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) to investigate transitions towards sustainability in agriculture as well as to contribute to enhancing the MLP framework, we focused on the microscale transition pathways of winegrowers implementing an agroecological innovation, the Ecological Infrastructures (EIs), in Portugal’s Douro wine region
The available evidence offered by the literature review stresses the existence of research gaps concerning understanding of the sociotechnical transition phenomena occurring at territorial scales [70,71]

Summary

Introduction

In order to analyse empirical cases of sociotechnical transitions triggered by innovation, scientists have been using an approach called Multi-Level Perspective (MLP). The MLP approach was developed to explain transition in technological sectors, helping to understand radical innovation-related transition processes and providing guidelines for the strategic management of innovation niches [1], but it has been used to study transition processes in agriculture [2]. According to this approach, there is a transition when new interactions are designed between the conceptual levels of a sociotechnical system—the niche, the regime, and the landscape [3,4]. Torre et al [7] have observed that farmers who apparently could have developed different innovation models do, collaborate with each other partly because their farms are in close proximity but, above all, because they share the conditions of the same territory and partake in the same social logics

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion