UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA

Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Sustainable Territorial Development

INTERNSHIP REPORT

Academic year 2018-2019

Student Emma Taddei

Matriculation number 1136589

University tutors Laura Secco (UniPd), Chris Kesteloot (KU Leuven)

Professional tutors Abad Chabbi (INRA), Cornelia Rumpel (CNRS)

Place of the internship INRA, Thiverval-Grignon (France)

The academic tutors on (date)______________________________ APPROVE the

report.

Signatures

________________________________ ______________________________

�1

�2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION 5

II. DESCRIPTIVE PART 5

A. Presentation of the hosting institution 5

B. Self-presentation as a trainee 6

i. Summation of different internship activities & assignments, time allocation

ii. Motivation and personal objectives

C. Presentation of the internship activities 11

i. General and specific aims of the internship

ii. Planning of the internship and logbook

iii. Materials and methods

iv. Analysis and results

III. THEORETICAL-REFLECTIVE PART 13

A. Reflection on action 13

i. Finding (or trying to) my way among natural scientists

IV. EVALUATIVE PART 16

A. Skills 16

B. Meaning of the internship for my academic education and future17

C. Gaps & their improvements 18

D. Evaluation of learning effects and conclusions 19

E. Brief comment on the internship organisation 20

V. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 20

VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY 21

VII. ANNEXES 23

�3

�4

I. INTRODUCTION

The present internship report aims at reflecting upon the curricular internship realised as part of the Master’s Degree in Sustainable Territorial Development (STeDe) organised by the universities of Padova, KU Leuven and Paris (Panthéon-Sorbonne). The internship, which lasted over six months between February and July 2019, was carried out at the INRA – based in Thiverval-Grignon, France –, the French National Institute of Agricultural Research. In line with my main interests, the internship was a research one, for which I co-wrote the project with the internship supervisors, Abad Chabbi and Cornelia Rumpel, already in November. The following report is composed of 3 main parts: a first descriptive part, followed by a theoretical-reflective one and concluded by a third evaluative part.

II. DESCRIPTIVE PART

A general description of the hosting institution (A), the trainee (B) and the internship activities (C) will here be carried out.

A. Presentation of the hosting institution

My internship took place under the double umbrella of the INRA and the CNRS, for I had two supervisors: Cornelia Rumpel, director of research at the CNRS, and Abad Chabbi, director of research at the INRA. It was carried out in the offices of the INRA of Thiverval-Grignon.

The INRA, Institut National de la Recherce Agronomique, is a national public scientific research institution under the dual aegis of the Ministry of Research and the Ministry of Agriculture. Composed of 250 research units and 45 experimental units, it is the second world scientific institute for the number of scientific publications in agricultural research. It has several objectives, besides the production and dissemination of knowledge: to promote innovation, sustainable development and bioeconomy, to foster the debate about science's role in society, to participate to the shaping of European research strategies so as to contribute to regional land use.

I worked within the mixed research unit (UMR, unité mixte de recherche) Ecosys, ecotoxicology of agroecosystems (écotoxigologie des agroécosystèmes). This UMR focuses on the study of agroecosystems functioning through consideration of biogeochemical processes, material and energy flows, and on the functions of organisms in isolation or interacting with their environment (figure 1 below).

�5

The challenge of Ecosys is to appropriate concepts and theories from functional ecology to ultimately propose tools and models that can be used for forecasting or evaluation in a scenario of growing climatic constraints, where stringent decisions will have to be taken in order to tackle global changes such as climate change, soils use and practices’ changes, pollution etc. Models and tools issued from research, experimentations and field studies will then play a major role all along the decision-making process.

As the only (budding) social scientist within a research team of bio-geo-chemists, my role was not always very well integrated into the equipe; nonetheless, this diversity led to a great learning experience (see part III, p.14 for more thorough explanation). The “place” of my internship was exactly in between (the gap of) these two research domains: it was a socio-economic analysis drawing upon soil science datas.

B. Self-presentation as a trainee

i. Summation of different internship activities & assignments, time allocation

The internship aimed at carrying out a socio-economical analysis of leverages and blockages that come about when trying to foster the use of “good practices” aimed at enhancing soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in agriculture. The first activity was a thorough bibliographic review: I spent the first month getting familiar with the topic as well as reading what was already written on the subject, both in technical terms of SOC sequestration (and mainly through the work of R. Lal, 2004a, 2004b, 2015)

�6

Fig.1 Conceptual framework of the ecosys project,source: https://www6.versailles-grignon.inra.fr/ecosys

and in terms of farmers’ perceptions towards it. I found out that the majority of the researches on farmers’ perceptions were carried out in the United States (Cook et al., 2014a; Cook et al., 2014b; Antle et al., 2002; Gramig et al., 2013; Sautter et al., 2011; Sulemana et al., 2014), leaving a knowledge gap as far as France, and Europe, are concerned. This gap is somehow filled up by the “4 per 1000” initiative that provides a voluntarily collaborative platform for several actors to jointly engage and commit to maintain and increase soil carbon through sustainable management practices (https://www.4p1000.org/), but that does not specifically target the socio-economic aspects of SOC sequestration.The bibliographic analysis gave me both a sound theoretical knowledge about the topic and a clearer overview of what was missing. This helped me to find out where it could have been most interesting and fruitful to situate the research and the production of new knowledge it would have implied.

Then, political ecology was chosen as theoretical framework. Political ecology (PE) is a vaste field of study that encompasses scholars from many diverse fields (anthropology, geography, ecology, development studies, environmental sociology, environmental history). They all contribute to its vaste corpus of literature from different angles - political economy, relation between humans and nature, environmental justice, change theories (while being critical about the wideness of a theory claiming to encompass and assimilate all sorts of changes. Risks with over-stretching names range from blatant assimilation of diversity to disregard of specificities in the name of an all-encompassing theory). PE is also a puzzle of a wide range of crucial theoretical concepts: “common property theory, green materialism, peasant studies, feminist development studies, discourse theory, critical environmental history, postcolonial theory, and actor-network theory” (Robbins, 2012, p.51). To all of them, we advocate that some background - or sometimes even specialised - knowledge of natural sciences should be added, interdisciplinarity and complementarity being milestones of PE. PE can be broadly understood as addressing the dynamics of the interactions between social and environmental systems, with explicit consideration of relations of power (Robbins, 2012). PE offers insights on how to merge “political ecology” with “science studies”, and how to blend social and natural science approaches with environmental problems (Forsyth, 2003). Problems which range from the environmental domain of e.g. biodiversity decline and climate change to productivist agriculture and extractivism, to human-induced starvation. They all share the more general and pernicious root cause of some social actors exploiting others (both humans and non-humans) for limited gain at collective cost, i.e. for agriculture “all progress in capitalistic agriculture is the progress in the art not only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the more lasting sources of that fertility” (Marx 1990, p. 638). PE aims at finding causes rather than symptoms of problems, being vigilant inside an anthropocentric paradigm of human development predicated on the exploitation of nonhuman nature – and the consequent reproduction of such exploitative relations within the human realm (Srinivasan and Kasturirangan, 2016).

�7

These struggles in the name of development may be over material assets (land, natural resources) as well as over meaning (Benjaminsen and Svarstad, 2009). An example of the power meaning can get is, in line with our research field, the commonly spread definition of a “clean, proper field” as one where there are no other weeds growing except the selected crop. This mainstream discourse, put forward by the interests of chemical industries as much as by cooperatives aiming for the highest possible yield, nowadays has a significant impact, and thus power, over farmers’ mindsets and consequent choices. Meaning is associated to power insofar as the attribution of the former (meaning) to material assets (e.g. the cleanliness of a field) is distributing power over them and over other people. The attribution of meaning entails the establishment of power dynamics by the people attributing that meaning over the material assets other people rely on. When dealing with meaning, the effects of poststructuralism, questioning the (in)stability of many of the categories we usually take for granted including self, truth, and knowledge, shall not be neglected. Especially relevant is the influence of Foucault’s theses of truth being an effect of power, created through language and enforcing social order by seeming taken for granted (Foucault, 1980). According to this poststructural perspective, in order to (try to) understand the character of society, these taken-for-granted notions shall be explored both throughout the discursive process that leads to their creation, and through the social practices which enforce them and make them true (Robbins, 2012). This is why we selected Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as an analysis tool. Furthermore, as it will be flashed out in the methodology part of the master thesis, political ecology and critical discourse analysis share many features, such as the analyses of systems of power and how to unbuild and unravel them; the understanding of society mechanisms beyond the veils of power dynamics; the pivotal importance of the context (Fairclough, 1995); the ineluctable politicisation of the analysis which steams out of the evidence that environmental change and ecological conditions are the products of political processes (Robbins, 2012). This politicisation inevitably entails a positioning of the researchers out of the scope of neutrality (being neutral would intrinsically rest upon some assumptions) -but carefully within the realm of objectivity. Thus, to lead studies of the narratives and discourses associated with various actors and their interests within the theoretical frame of PE, we made use of CDA, following Fairclough’s theorisation.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) proposes that in our daily activities, the way we speak and write is shaped by the structures of power in our society, and that because our society is defined by struggle and conflict over power, our discourses reflect and create conflicts. Therefore, the analysis of leverages and blockages pertaining to the implementation of good SOC sequestration practices will be considered and analysed within a broader frame of constraints and power relations. The individual dimension of the singular farmer is only the starting point of our analysis, which aims at flashing out the complexity of the multitude of actors involved, human and non-human ones (Krzywoszynska, 2019), and their interplay as well as the power mechanisms at play. For a more encompassing description of CDA, please refer to the Methodology part of the master thesis.

�8

Once the setting was laid out, the fun started! There were only some preliminary steps left before being able to start collecting primary data though the interviews.I wrote down an interview guide (guide d’entretien, please see annex 1 in French) which I used during the semi-structured interviews as a guideline on which to base the questions, and I started looking for possible candidates for the interviews: farmers, working in the South of France (Occitanie et Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur regions) and cultivating cereals on a medium to big surface (between 50 and 300 hectares).

To obtain farmers’ contacts I reached out to the many Chambres d’agriculture and Cooperatives, as well as to different people working on (more or less) related topics at the INRA, SupAgro, Confederation paysanne, CNRS. It took me some good couple of weeks to start having a pool of famers big enough not to need to reach out for more people. I would also ask every farmer at the end of the interview if he could provide me with some other contacts, so as to rely on the “snowball” effect to enlarge my pool.

Little by little, I started carrying out the interviews by phone. It took me about a month finish all the interviews - the most enriching and stressful phase -, whose length would vary from 25 to 120 minutes.

After the interviews and their retranscription, I started analysing the data I had through the software NVivo. A sample of visual results obtained through Nvivo can be seen in the following images 2 and 3.

�9

Fig. 2 “Coding hierarchy” with NVivo, source: author’s own

4 x 1000

resumption

glyphosate

infos source

role re...monito...decision ...

bio - organic

Climat changeresilien...cc yes

great quotes

Drivers

environment - ...

auto...econ...External pressures

PO - other farm...

institutions pr...Overview

land tenure

date of ...SA descrip...

Constraints & obligations

environmental - climatic

legislative - regulatoryeconomic

SOC sequestration

perceptions of SOC ...

- go...attitudes on ...positive

knowledge of

solutions - improvementseconom...

technical - ...

+ good practices

no till - direct seed

land cover

While analysing results, I started writing the internship report and redacting the master thesis, activities which took the whole (and more beyond that) of the two months left of internship.

ii. Motivation and personal objectives

What motivated me to choose this internship, despite being aware of its length and the little guidance I would have had (both my professional tutors were biogeochemists and they do not have experience in the field of social science), was the interdisciplinarity I would have been embedded in: to be at some sort of crossroad of social sciences and ecology, trying to legitimate and strengthen the importance of the complementarity of these disciplines. Moreover, I found the inclusion of socioeconomic and political tools as a possible “solution” for environmental problems to be original and timely, emblem of the holistic approach needed to address the great challenges faced by our contemporary societies.

�10

carboneexploitation

agriculteurscultures

temps

agriculturecouverts

travailmonde

semis

techniquesclimatique

contraintesproblème

choix

culturematière

mieux

exemple

produits

changement

compliqué

organique

travailler

terreséquestration

labour

techniquedirect

recherche

matérielsemence

terres

agriculteur

couvert

glyphosate

azote

longtemps

essayer

surface

forcémentvé

gétaux

france

système

besoin

productionprojet

labourer

possible

semences

obligé

vigne

manière

terme

facile

semer

début

souci

aider

Fig. 3 “Words query” (minimum 5 letters) with NVivo, source: author’s own

The interdisciplinarity feature of this internship seemed every much in line with the STeDe master, as they both rely on the convergence of knowledge from different domains: biogeochemistry and soil science, climate science, sociology and economics in the case of my internship. The choice I made turned out to be the right one: I got the chance to apply the knowledge I had in qualitative and socio-economic analysis on the completely new field of soil organic carbon sequestration in agriculture. My objective was to get out of the social sciences “bubble” so as to be able to translate and integrate my knowledge in a different domain, while keeping clear in mind, as much as endlessly questioning, sustainability. I have always been interested and concerned by agricultural and ecological issues, both aspects which are not, if not marginally, part of the STeDe master, and I chose this internship to deepen my knowledge in these domains. I also wanted to carry out a research internship to test whether I could like to work in the field of research later on.

C. Presentation of the internship activities

As said before, my internship consisted at analysing the socio-economical aspects of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in farmland activities, targeting different agricultural exploitations in the South-West of France. The aim was to inquiry and analyse both the good practices and the bottlenecks of SOC sequestration from a socio-economical perspective: which factors determine the (non)adoption of “good” practices in relation to SOC sequestration? Which are the social, cultural and economic barriers farmers face to the implementation of these practices, and how to overcome them?

i. General and specific aims of the internship

More precisely, the general objective was to carry out a state of the art of the knowledge farmers have about the SOC topic and to understand how they take it or not into account for their choices. Then, the specifics objectives were 1) to understand the different leverages which exist as well as the 2) multiple obstacles farmers face when it comes to implementing “good practices” aimed at preserving SOC stocks. One more specific objective was to 3) find out which might be the most suitable way(s) to foster the adoption and implementation of the “good practices” so as to enhance SOC sequestration.

The aim of the internships was to bridge the gap in between researchers’ and farmers' knowledge and expectations by attempting to find out which technical and political measures should be tailored to the specific needs of farmers. To this end, the expected outcomes were integrated guidelines on how to best promote soil carbon management among farmers. Possible strategies include economic incentives, regulations or sanctions, cap-and-trade, supply chain initiatives (Paustian et al., 2016), increasing social capital,

�11

real-life demonstrations or advisory programs, always keeping in mind that every measure shall not only be politically implemented but, most importantly, culturally embedded.

ii. Planning of the internship and logbook

The internship was planned as shown into the following GANTT diagram. For a more detailed planning, please refer to the logbook in the annex session (annex 2).

iii. Materials and methods

To successfully carry out the internship, material from both primary and secondary sources was used.

As secondary sources I relied on papers, journals, publications, articles, books, websites and presentations. Both my internship and academic supervisors provided me with some of it, guiding my first steps into the vaste domain of bibliographical research.

Primary material was produced through the interviews. Before carrying them out, some informal and unstructured interviewing took place in order to allow me to develop a keen understanding of the topic, necessary for drafting a relevant and meaningful interview guide. Unfortunately, interviews took place by phone, since my study area was in the far South while I was based in Paris, and also because, due to meteorological constraints, it was quite hard to get precise and well-defined appointments with farmers. Moreover, while I was comfortably sitting behind a desk, for most of them it was the sowing season, which meant they were busier than usual. Needless to say, to carry out interviews by phone had a significant impact on the collected results, as such an interview gives access to very different information compared to a face-to-face one. Different does not necessarily mean worse or better, because the absence of a physical presence can be both a deterrent, as people might feel more detached and less prone to answer, or an incentive thanks to the anonymity provided by the absence of visual or physical contact which makes it easier to disclose private or sensitive informations. To carry out all my interviews by phone allowed me to have a pool (of 30 farmers) twice as big as the one I first prospected. Interviews lasted from 25 to 120 minutes and were semi-structured. Semi-structured means that, despite an interview guide exists and is known by hearth by the interviewer, its questions

�12

are not formalised nor fixed ones. The semi-structured interview questions are mainly open-ended, and follow-up questions are used to draw out more specific elements. This structure encourages a two-way communication, which enriches the discussion and often leaves more room for additional and personal information to be gathered, as well as providing the opportunity for identifying new ways of seeing and understanding the topic at hand. Semi-structured interviews also allow informants the freedom to express their views in their own terms, and they can provide reliable, meaningful and comparable qualitative data.

The interviews were later on transcribed, and then the collected data analysed. Data analysis was performed with the help of the NVivo software. NVivo is is a qualitative data analysis (QDA) computer software package, which enables researchers to organise, store, analyse and retrieve data so as to work more efficiently, save time and rigorously back up findings with evidence.

For a more detailed description of the methodology, please refer to the master thesis corresponding section.

iv. Analysis and results

For detailed internship analysis and results please refer to the master thesis.

III. THEORETICAL-REFLECTIVE PART

This part aims at impartially evaluating my performance as a trainee and my role inside the INRA; explanation so as to why will be provided for both success and shortcomings.

A. Reflection on action

When reflecting on the internship, the first impression that comes to my mind is a strong feeling of autonomy and independence. Throughout the internship I was given very much autonomy and responsibility, which encouraged me to work the best I could. The opportunity to take my own decisions, to choose how to orient the research, how to carry out the interviews, how to analyse them and what to do with the data made me feel significantly empowered -despite being “only an intern". Of course this freedom came with all its charge of responsibility, because making autonomous choices means as well being the only one to be hold accountable. Nonetheless, I was very happy to be able to find my way, by all means with the guidance of both my university supervisors and my INRA ones when needed.

�13

Moreover, the initial idea of carrying out face-to-face interviews turned out to be too complicated due to the choice of the case study (Sud-Est of France), and I missed the human contacts and connection that I would have gained from it. Spending hours on the phone was not as enriching as going into the fields (literally) could have been. I was immediately confronted with the need of making a structured roadmap, both in terms of timing and of priority of tasks to be accomplished. It was not easy all the time to keep up with the rhythms I set for myself, and not having clear deadlines sometimes turned out to be slippery, in the sense that I found myself postponing the least pleasant tasks (notably, transcriptions of phone interviews, with not optimal sound quality, many technical and specific agricultural words of which I did not even know the translation in Italian, in a language which is not my mother tongue and whose accents and patois I struggle with sometimes).

One diverging last remark might be on the length of the internship: on one hand, six months is a ridiculously short time to carry out a congruous research. On the other hand, taking into account the time needed for the writing of the thesis, of the internship report, the “urgency” of making up my mind in order to start looking for future opportunities, I had the impression that these six months passed by in a fingers snap. Keeping in mind that I made my bed, so I will not complain for having to lie on it, all the time the internship took, while I could have done a three months one for the sake of the master, costed me lots of efforts and required very good planning skills.

i. Finding (or trying to) my way among natural scientists

The opportunity of integrating a team of biogeochemists was a unique one that I am very glad for. Every exchange was enriching and challenging at the very same time, and I had access to a great deal of knowledge I would not have thought of. I remember lunch breaks in which I learnt more from colleagues on soil science that I ever did. I also got confronted to a completely different mindset, the one of “hard” sciences, where conclusions are drawn only after several verification tests in the laboratories, where hazards and fluctuations that could be ascribed to the variability of the human nature are reduced to the least. This entails that my qualitative method, emphasising and trying to account for the richness intrinsic in human variability, was seen as something quite abstract and aleatoric. Reactions of my “team mates” ranged from very interested and curious to deeply skeptical. I used quotation marks in the previous sentence because despite being associated to the research unit Ecosys, I did not really have a role inside it. There is to say, my research did not quite fit inside the agenda of the Ecosys unit, but it rather responded to the 4 per 1000 initiative my two supervisors work on. This meant that interactions with members of Ecosys were quite limited, in both directions. If I were to have more time, I could have learnt very much from the establishment of some sort of cooperation project, but I realised that it takes time to get past the line of incommunicability still standing in between social and hard sciences. Incommunicability that, to the extent I experienced it, mainly results out of differences in methods and in what is hold to be accountable, reliable and scientifically

�14

valid and valuable. The rigour of hard sciences aims at making all the experiments reproducible, while for social sciences it points at the uniqueness of human experiences. Methods are of course robust in both cases and proves and verifications shall always be possible. This “outsider” positioning did not prevent me to any extent to carry out my own research project, but it undoubtedly impoverished its interdisciplinary side I praise so much for. However, some good curiosity was risen, as by the end of my internship many people come to see me asking to send them the final thesis so that they could better understand what I was working on and how. Moreover, I found ways to valorise my research by connecting with some researchers from the SAD-APT (science action développement, activity produits térriroires) mixed research unit, whose focus is closer to the turn my research had, and this cooperation will be pursued further as one of my future PhD supervisor belongs to this research unit.

Interactions with my internship supervisors were also very limited, I would guess for multiple reasons such as the many other interns and Phd students they supervise, the amount of their own work and research to be carried out, the organisation of the 4 per 1000 conference… All of it accounted in very little time left for me. Moreover, I suppose that their unfamiliarity with the approach and the methods I relied on put some distance between us, as they both have a formation, background and academic career as bio-geo-chemists. At first, we all did not think it would have been a problem - and indeed, it turned out not to be one -, but as time went on we realised that rather than cooperating we were carrying out autonomous works. What gave us the opportunity to cooperate more was the conference, as they helped me out with the poster, and the article we will co-write. However, that was an aspect I was aware of, as both my internships supervisors made it clear since the beginning that they could not have helped me with all the socio-economic component of my analysis. I remember back then that I was very thrilled at the idea of being given so much trust and autonomy straight away. Therefore, despite I missed some guidance, the overall internship experience turned to be a positive one.

Nonetheless, it could have been of great help to be able to confront and consult with someone in the same domain of research as mine. Being the only person working on socio-economic aspects, I did not have the chance to dynamically reflect upon my choices through someone else’s experience. In the best possible world, there would have been mutual learning and cooperation from both sides, but my “intern” status cut out, very understandably, every possibility to put in place long-lasting cooperations and learning processes. Nonetheless, I had a glance of the power and richness interdisciplinarity can bring about, such as systemic views valorising complexity, or multifaceted explanations accounting for different perspectives. Alongside with that, I also got a taste of the obstacles and shortcoming interdisciplinarity faces, namely incommunicability and the increasing diversification of disciplines & over-specialisation of individuals no longer used to tap into other domains to better understand their subjects.

�15

IV. EVALUATIVE PART

This part provides an evaluation of the skills (A), learnings and learning process. Also, the meaning of the internship in a future-term horizon (B) alongside with the identification of gaps and how to fill them (C), is provided. Conclusions (D) are followed by a brief comment on the internship organisation (E).

A. Skills

First, the flexibility of the internship enabled me to shape the research, within a precise frame of course, in the way that would have fitted me best. This allowed the days not to be repetitive and no routine to settle, which is important to keep an active brain and a will to complete tasks and activities. Furthermore, activities were carried out independently and feedback was given from time to time by the training supervisors, letting therefore space to set personal goals, deadlines and challenges.

Of pivotal importance was the fact that during the internship a good amount of academic skills eventually found a “concrete” application. What I mostly tapped into was qualitative research techniques: the sound background I had thanks to the academic educational programme was reinforced day by day in both its theoretical and practical aspects. To carry out 30 interviews undoubtedly strengthened my qualitative research skills. On the other hand, the internship challenged all the missing notions of ecology not provided by the master, especially in terms of agriculture and environmental preservation. Previously acquired notions of human geography, economy, political ecology and sustainability turned out to be more than helpful in the understanding and achievement of my research and internship goals.

More academic skills I applied and relied upon were of course bibliographic and redaction ones: the methodic strictness which was required from us by professors during these past years turned out to the be the same I would ask to myself. Moreover, time management and prioritisation turned out, as I already said, to be indispensable all along the internship. To analyse such an important pool of data called on analytical and critical thinking, and carrying out the interviews boosted my oral communication skills.

The internship was the opportunity to concretely face, and strive to untangle, the numerous complexities and contradictions linked to the concept of sustainability (or what’s left of it beyond the buzzword it became). During the master we learn since the very beginning that there is not one ironclad way, method, theory, theorem, suitable direction for sustainability and no such a thing as a golden theory which would work as a one-fits-all solution. During the internship I had the chance to get concretely confronted with this complexity: I interviewed farmers and listened to their daily struggles not to succumb to an industrial and productivist model while striving to preserve the soils and the biodiversity which keeps them, and us all, alive. Once again, critical thinking came into play, and gave

�16

me enough hindsight to better frame and unravel the dynamic I was trying to understand and analyse.

In terms of novelty, I acquired some very interesting technical knowledge mainly in terms of agriculture and specifically of course in SOC sequestration, as well as confronting myself with concrete representations of the struggle for sustainability and the importance and role it plays -or not- outside the academic world. I got faster at typing (hours and hours of transcription), and my French understanding got significantly boosted. I had to adjust to farmers’ schedules (based on meteorological constraints and not on personal whims) to carry out the interviews, which forced me to be more flexible and understanding than I would have thought. I strengthened my research skills and confronted myself with the publishing fever of academia, when, after presenting a poster to the 4 per 1000 conference, I was asked to write an article in two months so as to fit within the deadline of the review I was meant to publish on. Last but not least, I came to very much like this world of daily discovery, learning, challenge and creation of knowledge (in spite of all the critiques of elitism, biases, lack of robustness and reliability, money-driven research etc. which I also became aware of).

B. Meaning of the internship for my academic education and future

I think this internship has been a milestone for my future, as I have been able to more concretely project myself into the world of research and academia. This culminated in a PhD I have been accepted to, entitled "Quelle science pour répondre aux défis environnementaux contemporains? La conception d’expérimentations socio-écologiques pour mettre au point des systèmes de production agricoles résilients et des modes de gouvernance adaptés”. This PhD position is jointly supervised by a member of the INRA (mixed research unit SAD-APT, science pour l’action et le développement) and a member of the CEBC (Centre d’Études Biologiques de Chizé, attached to the CNRS, Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique). To carry out my internship at the INRA surely gave me more chances of getting selected (happily bypassing the bias of university grades which do not always reflect students’ abilities or knowledges), as my internship supervisors had been able to closely report my research skills to my future supervisors and they knew I already had basic knowledge on how to find my way around inside a research institute.

The internship gave me precious insights, both theoretical and practical ones, and it put me in front of my abilities and weaknesses. I had the chance to very much appreciate my topic, my supervisors -both the internship and the academic ones-, the working rhythm I set for myself and the workload. Furthermore, the richness and complementarity different disciplines brought to my internship was a precious added value, and a great culmination of such an interdisciplinary master as the STeDe one. It further reinforced my belief in the urgent need for research to broaden up to interdisciplinarity, as I experienced its importance myself: my research stood at the convergence of knowledge from domains of

�17

biogeochemistry and soil science, climate science, sociology and economics. The SOC sequestration topic was analysed not only under the light of its potential for CO2 capture and storage, but also as a tool for farmers’ emancipation in front of soils’ exhaustion, nutrients depletion and soil erosion: to enhance SOC means to increase the resilience of the soil we depend on. Moreover, farmers’ exploitations were selected through a careful combination of historical data and future models, so as to account for a time-range as representative and sound as possible and to approach farmers not only with complex and sophisticated models they might trust or not, but also with concrete -and alarming- evidences. Interdisciplinary came into play since history and computer modelling converged. Last but not least, it is thanks to sociological tools that a socio-economic analysis was carried out so as to deliver an answer to the research question, i.e. which strategies could be effective in helping farmers enhancing SOC sequestration.

C. Gaps & their improvements

As I mentioned before, the main difficulty I faced was issued from the choice of my internship supervisors, which I selected despite being aware since the beginning that they could not have helped me in the domain of social sciences. They gave me all the logistic and technical support I needed, and helped me out as far as SOC technical aspects were concerned. When applying, I remember telling myself that it would have undoubtedly been a challenge, and feeling very thrilled and motivated to face it. There is to say, I made the bed and I lied on it! Not being part of a research team, I worked very much on my own, which is something I regret because I am sure I could have learned a lot from punctual exchanges with other researchers on the same topic. You cannot heal incommunicability out of a six months internship, but I am very motivated to try to do so in a long(er) run - during my PhD for example.In terms of activities, not being able to carry out face-to-face interviews was an inconvenient which left me somewhat disappointed, but which was intrinsic in the choice of a sample so far from my office, choice that in turn was due to “higher” reasons (e.g. climate). I should have considered a single visit, to glance at the local context and “feel” it, especially since almost all the farmers warmly invited me to come over and visit. Unfortunately, during the internship I did not think of it, and now I cannot but regret it. This is undoubtedly the main thing I would change if given the chance; nonetheless, it taught me the importance of being mobile and flexible.

I would like to conclude with some hints for improving the master program itself. While carrying out the internship, I realised how important it is, while reflecting upon sustainable development, to have a sound interdisciplinary background. As far as the STeDe master is concerned, my regret was that the natural science component of environmental sustainability was almost completely disregarded. Great focus was put on socio-economic aspects, while climatic, environmental, bio-chemical or geological components were left

�18

aside. It goes without saying, a two-years master cannot provide its students with an omni-comprehensive knowledge, bu tI think that more attention should be paid to provide them, and us, with some at least general ideas about natural sciences. The reasons why I am stating that are two. The first one is because during the internship I realised that I had no clue about neither agricultural systems nor soil functions and dynamics, nor about climatic models - knowledges which, needless to say, would have tremendously helped me out. The second reason is because after the first year of the SteDe master I attended one year of the ICP master in Sustainable Development in Leuven, following the ecology tracks: it is from there that I got the knowledge I have on ecology, which I deem to be of pivotal importance, alongside with social sciences, while facing the complexity of the current environmental crisis.

D. Evaluation of learning effects and conclusions

The main expectations for the internship -understanding in practice how to autonomously carry out a qualitative research program, being challenged and put out of my comfort zone, entering the research network- were all met. In this sense, the internship was a complete success.

Another expectation I had was to figure out wether I would have liked to work in the research field in the future, and it is very true that practice makes perfect: every day I felt more confident and legitimate in doing what I was doing. Nowadays, I could concretely project myself into the research domain, so as to put together and build on all my previously acquired knowledges, connecting and interweaving social sciences, ecology and sustainability towards the creation of a research project. The crossroad of social sciences and ecology seems to me a very fertile ground where to try to make my research grow.The freedom of the research I got the chance to experience is one of the aspects I cherish, and it was important for me to realise that to be willing to spend five days out of seven working, I need the final product to be part of a process of personal growth as well as of the creation of -more or less meaningful- knowledge.

I am very satisfied with the internship because its length and deepness allowed me to go through (a condensed version of) all the phases of research: construction and articulation of the initial project, bibliographic research, selection of the sample, creation of primary data trough interviews, analysis of collected data, redaction phase… Despite the little time, I am quite contented with the completion of all the most important phases of my research.

This internship was core in setting the context and providing the material for my thesis. A big part of the work I did during the internship was functional or very helpful and useful for the writing of the thesis.

�19

E. Brief comment on the internship organisation

Inside the INRA, I felt very legitimate in carrying out my research: approaching other researchers or people working as advisors or farmers was made very easy thanks to the INRA “hat” I had. The organisation is remarkably big, and its research domains are multiple and voluminous: this is one of the aspects I highly appreciated, because it gave me enough room to carry out a socio-economic research inside a soil bio-geo-chemist department. As a long-established research institute, the resources and notoriety it has are significant, and the environment is rich and stimulating. The other side of the coin is that because of its vastness, it is not easy to always find your way around. Through the INRA I also got the chance to take part to several seminaries and trainings and to attend an international conference, which further nurtured my internship experience. Especially the “food security and climate change: 4 per 1000 initiative new tangible global challenges for the soil” conference was a great learning experience. I was lucky enough that my two internship supervisors were the organisers of the conference. It lasted four days and it took place in Poitiers, where international scientists gathered to debate about the opportunities, advancements or drawbacks of the 4 per 1000 initiative. I met in real life some of the people who constituted my bibliography as far as SOC sequestration is concerned (Chenu, Lal, Ingram, Weismeier), and I had the chance to expose to them the results of my own research through a poster (the first day of the conference I also had the interview for the PhD, what a day!). My contribution was the only one whose focus was not primarily a bio-geo-chemical one, which rose many interests as well as loads of questions and some misunderstandings. I had the feeling, arguably a childish one, that it is not always straightforward to be accepted as a social scientist in a natural scientists circle. Among the genuine and interested questions I got, I was also confronted with slippery ones, e.g. questioning the reliability of qualitative research and its ethics. Both provided me with a small overview of what the scientific world could look like, and gave me the tools to better structure my arguments to face it.

V. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I would like to thank Abad et Cornelia for giving me the opportunity to work with them, for their trust and support. I hope we will get the chance to collaborate more in the future! A special thanks my thesis supervisors, prof. Kesteloot and prof.ssa Secco, for guiding me and taking the time to solve my multiple doubts. Many thanks also to all the farmers I interviewed, who found the time to answer my questions despite their busy schedules, always in a cheerful and open manner. They showed an interest in my research and a dedication to their jobs to warm the hearth. My research would have simply been impossible without their support. And thanks to family, friends and lovers, close by and far away, for the daily support.

�20

VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Antle J.M., Mooney S., 2002, Designing Efficient Policies for Agricultural Soil Carbon Sequestration, Agriculture Practices and Policies for Carbon Sequestration in Soil, pp. 323–336

• Benjaminsen T.A., Svarstad H., 2009, Qu’est-ce que la « political ecology » ?, Natures Sciences Sociétés, vol.17, pp.3-11

• Cook S.L., Ma Z., 2014a, Carbon sequestration and private rangelands: Insights from Utah landowners and implications for policy development, Land Use Policy, vol.36, pp.522– 532

• Cook S.L., Ma Z., 2014b, The interconnectedness between landowner knowledge, value, belief, attitude, and willingness to act: Policy implications for carbon sequestration on private rangelands, Journal of Environmental Management, vol.134, pp.90-99

• Dumbrell N.P., Kragt M.E., Gibson F.L., 2016, What carbon farming activities are farmers likely to adopt? A best–worst scaling survey, Land Use Policy, vol.54, pp.29–37

• Fairclough N., 1995, Critical discourse analysis: papers in the critical study of language, Longman Group Limited

• Forsyth T., 2008, Political ecology and the epistemology of social justice, Geoforum, vol.39, pp.756–764

• Forsyth T., 2003, Critical Political Ecology, The politics of environmental science, Routledge

• Foucault M., 1980, Truth and power, in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and other Writings 1972–1977 (ed. C. Gordon), Pantheon Books, New York, pp. 109–133

• Gramig B.M., Barnard J.M., Prokopy L.S., 2013, Farmer beliefs about climate change and carbon sequestration incentives, Climate research, vol. 56, pp.157–167

• Krzywoszynska A., 2019, Caring for soil life in the Anthropocene: The role of attentiveness in more‐than‐human ethics, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, p.1-15

• Lal R., 2004a, Soil Carbon Sequestration Impacts on Global Climate Change and Food Security, Science, vol. 304, pp.1623-1626

• Lal R., 2004b, Soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change, Geoderma vol.123, pp.1-22

• Lal R., Negassa W., Lorenz K., 2015, Carbon sequestration in soil, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, vol.15, pp.79–86

• Marx K., 1990, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. I, Penguin, New York• Paustian K., Lehmann J., Ogle S., Reay D., Robertson G.P., Smith P., 2016, Climate-

smart soils, Nature, vol.532, pp.49-57 • Robbins P., 2012, Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction, Second Edition, John Wiley &

Sons Ltd • Sautter J.A., Czap N.V., Kruse C., Lynne G.D., 2011, Farmers' Decisions Regarding

Carbon Sequestration: A Metaeconomic View, Society and Natural Resources, vol.24, n.2, pp.133-147

�21

• Srinivasan K., Kasturirangan R., 2016, Political ecology, development, and human exceptionalism, Geoforum, vol.75, pp.125–128

• Sulemana I., James Jr.H.S., 2014, Farmer identity, ethical attitudes and environmental practices, Ecological Economics, vol 98, pp.49–61

�22

VII. ANNEXES

�23

1. Pourriez-vous me décrire votre exploitation (hectares, cultures, techniques, sols, productivité; chronologie de l’exploitation e.g.familiale, achetée, louée …)

2. Pourriez-vous me parler de vous (âge, études, situation familiale, revenue)3. Êtes-vous suivi.e/conseillé.e dans vos choix en termes de cultures, techniques etc.? Si oui,

par qui (chambres d’agriculture, cabinet de conseil, technicien)?4. Quels sont vos sources d’informations principales (e.g. voisins, conseillers, revues, internet,

formations etc)? Aux quelles faites-vous le plus confiance?5. Qu’est-ce que c’est pour vous le plus important dans votre métier? e.g. rentabilité,

production, variété, qualité, biodiversité, entraide… Quel(s) aspect(s) prime(nt) quand vous faites vos choix?

6. Quels sont les principaux contraints auxquels vous devez faire face? 7. Avez-vous été impacté.e / remarqué le changement climatique à aucun moment? De quelle

forme? Qu’en pensez-vous? Croyez-vous d’être résilient.e aux changements? Dans quelle mesure et comment?

8. Comment considérez-vous vos sols, quelle importance vous y accordez? Quelle propriété du sol est pour vous la plus importante? Et les matières organiques du sol, quels sont leurs fonctions d’après vous?

9. Savez-vous qu’est-ce que c’est la séquestration du carbone? Vous en pensez-quoi? (Connaissez-vous tous ses bénéfices? i.e., contribution to reducing global warming, diminution de l’erosion des sols et augmentation de la biodiversité et fertilité, additional personal income, income or property tax credits, public recognition for socially responsible land management)

10. Adoptez-vous des mesures/pratiques visant à préserver les sols? Si oui, lesquelles? Depuis combien de temps? Comment ça se passe (investissement, rendement, accompagnement…)?

11. Connaissez-vous le projet 4 per 1000? 12. Si vous pouviez envisager tout type de mesures quelle serait la meilleure pour vous

encourager à adopter des pratiques de préservation du sol/ préservation de la matière

organique/ conservation du stock du carbone? De quoi avez-vous besoin? 13. Quel(s) projet(s) vous avez pour votre exploitation dans le moyen terme? Et dans le longe

terme?14. Attendez-vous quelque chose des chercheurs et de la recherche scientifique? Quel rôle

vous envisagerait pour elle? Comment pourrait-on la rendre plus “utile” pour les agriculteurs?15. Contacts d’autres agriculteurs à me donner?16. Vous envoyer les résultats

Annex 1 guide d’entretien /Interviews’s guide

�24

Annex 2, logbook

�25

�26

�27

Socio-economic aspects of Soil Organic Carbon sequestration

Emma Taddei1; Abad Chabbi1; Cornelia Rumpel2; Nicoals Viovy3

1 INRA, 2 CNRS, 3 IPSL - LSCE CEA CNRS UVSQ

Emma Taddei

INRA UMR Ecosys

emma.taddei@lilo.org

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-taddei/

0033 7 71 57 17 18

Contact1. Bardin L.,2013, L'analyse de contenu, Paris cedex 14, France: Presses Universitaires de France. 2. Ben-Ari T., Boé J., Ciais P., Lecerf R., Van der Velde M., Makowski D., 2018, Causes and implications of the unforeseen 2016 extreme yield loss in the breadbasket of France,

Nature communications, vol.9, pp.1-10 3. Brisson N., Levrault F., 2010, projet CLIMATOR, ADEME - INRA, financé par l’ANR dans le cadre du programme Vulnérabilité, Milieux et Climat 4. Chenu C., Klumpp K., Bispo A., Angers D., Colnenne C., Metay A., 2014, Stocker du carbone dans les sols agricoles: évaluation de leviers d’action pour la France, Innovations

Agronomiques, vol.37, pp.23-37 5. Fairclough N., 1995, Critical discourse analysis: papers in the critical study of language, Longman Group Limited 6. Guest G., Namey E.E., Mitchell M.L., 2013, Collecting qualitative data: a field manual for applied research, SAGE Publications, London 7. Lal R., Negassa W., Lorenz K., 2015, Carbon sequestration in soil, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, vol.15, pp.79–86 8. Paustian K., Lehmann J., Ogle S., Reay D., Robertson G.P., Smith P., 2016, Climate-smart soils, Nature, vol.532, pp.49-57 9. Ray DK., Mueller ND., West P.C, Foley JA.., 2013, Yield trends are insufficient to double global crop production by 2050, PLoS ONE, vol.8, n.6, pp.1-8 10. Schauberger B., Ben-Ari T., Makowsk D., Kato T., Kato H., Ciais P., 2018, Yield trends, variability and stagnation analysis of major crops in France over more than a century,

Nature scientific report, vol.8, pp.1-12 11. Smith P., 2016, Soil carbon sequestration and biochar as negative emission technologies, Global Change Biology, vol.22, pp.1315–1324 12. Sommer R., Bossio D., 2014, Dynamics and climate change mitigation potential of soil organic carbon sequestration, Journal of Environmental Management, vol.144, pp.83–87

References

IntroductionQualitative research to delve into specific narratives of outstanding depth and details6 through 1) Bibliographic review

2) Political ecology as theoretical framework

3) Identification of study area through:- historical yields data2;9;10 - future climatic data (CLIMATOR3) 4) 30 semi-structured, in-depth interviews (30 to 120 min each)

5) Critical Discourse Analysis5 as the theoretical analytical framework

6) Coding of interviews1 with the help of NVivo.

This study shows that there is no “one fits all” solution for the implementation of RMPs: cultural, economic, political, geographic and social specificities need to be considered. Despite the climatic urgency, and the role SOC sequestration might play in mitigating it, farmers’ awareness on the topic and their concrete actions towards it are still negligible. Nonetheless, what our study wants to stress is that farmers’ agency is very limited, when considered within the broader frame of international markets mechanisms and supra-national power dynamics. External pressures (both institutional and of public opinion) also play a role in influencing farmers’ behaviours. To face and unravel this complexity, tailored solutions shall be offered, outside the frame of an intensive, productivist agriculture that destroys the planet alongside with farmers’ livelihoods. Economic incentives as well as technical support were strongly advocated.

Conclusions

Stud

y ar

ea:

Occ

itan

ie,

onth

ewor

ldm

ap.c

om

SOC sequestration is a very debated topic in research dealing with mitigation strategies to face climate change and ensure resilience and food security. Some perplexities lack a clear resolution, both from a socio-economical point of view and an environmental one (magnitude of SOC sinks capacity; short-term vs long-term effects of soil management4; soil erosion and deposition8; emissions of other GHG and permanence of C in the soil 7;11;12). Our research focuses on the social, cultural and economic barriers farmers face to the implementation of SOC sequestration practices, and how to overcome them. SOC sequestration has to be evaluated through the lens of human decision making and behaviour. Therefore, we aim at accounting for the spatial heterogeneity, diversity and non-linearity that can be observed in modern agricultural regimes, from an endogenous (behaviours, perceptions, attitudes, identities of farmers) and exogenous point of view (political and economical frameworks and adjustments).

Methods and materials

Annex 3, poster for the 4 per 1000 conference