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Veronique De Herde; Mattias Björnmalm; Toma Susi. Game over: empower early career researchers to improve research quality. Insights the UKSG journal 2021, 34, 1 .
AMA StyleVeronique De Herde, Mattias Björnmalm, Toma Susi. Game over: empower early career researchers to improve research quality. Insights the UKSG journal. 2021; 34 (1):1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleVeronique De Herde; Mattias Björnmalm; Toma Susi. 2021. "Game over: empower early career researchers to improve research quality." Insights the UKSG journal 34, no. 1: 1.
Drawing on an analysis of the Walloon dairy sector, this paper aims at bringing novel insights on the coexistence issue in agrifood transition studies. Whereas most studies explore the coexistence of farm models, our study focuses on value chains, in particular on cooperatives. In the Walloon Region, new dairy cooperatives emerged, as substitute or as complement to the incumbent vertically integrated dairy cooperatives. This paper focuses on the coexistence of dairy cooperative models as enabler of transition toward product diversification. Dairy cooperatives are hybrid actors: economic agents on the market on the one hand, structure of collective agency on the other hand. Williamson's framework of New Institutional Economics acknowledges that the allocation of resources by cooperatives depends on governance processes and on the wider institutional context in which the cooperatives evolve. Within the broader frame of the Multi-Level Perspective, this approach allows to consider the socio-technical coherence in which the cooperatives evolve, the effects of this coherence on their pathways of development, and the complementarity of the cooperative models. This qualitative analysis builds on semi-directed interviews with actors of the Walloon dairy sector. The results outline distinctions between the new cooperative models and mainstream dairy cooperatives in market approach, definition of milk quality, distribution of added value, governance, and interactions with partners. Both models evolve within a distinct socio-technical coherence, holding, in the case of the mainstream dairy cooperatives, lock-ins to diversification related to the relationship with the farmer-members and the milk they produce in the industrial vertically integrated model. The new cooperative models circumvent these lock-ins through de-integration and externalization of initiatives, remuneration, and risk. They allow specific groups of actors—still related or unrelated to the mainstream dairy cooperative—to explore new market pathways in accordance with their potential, and to mutually agree on criteria qualifying milk. This research draws the picture of a possible reconfiguration of the dairy landscape toward a more diversified ecosystem of actors and invites to consider structures of governance in collective action as a cornerstone issue, because of their significant role in terms of enablement, coexistence, and complementarity throughout the transition process.
Véronique De Herde; Philippe V. Baret; Kevin Maréchal. Coexistence of Cooperative Models as Structural Answer to Lock-Ins in Diversification Pathways: The Case of the Walloon Dairy Sector. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 2020, 4, 1 .
AMA StyleVéronique De Herde, Philippe V. Baret, Kevin Maréchal. Coexistence of Cooperative Models as Structural Answer to Lock-Ins in Diversification Pathways: The Case of the Walloon Dairy Sector. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 2020; 4 ():1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleVéronique De Herde; Philippe V. Baret; Kevin Maréchal. 2020. "Coexistence of Cooperative Models as Structural Answer to Lock-Ins in Diversification Pathways: The Case of the Walloon Dairy Sector." Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 4, no. : 1.
As the 2009 dairy crisis drew attention to the situation of dairy farmers in Europe, the extent of strategical power left to farmers in dairy cooperatives of increasing size is a frequently raised issue. Four dairy cooperatives collect 97% of the milk in the Walloon Region (in the southern part of Belgium). Two of them integrated agro-food multinationals. We decided to analyze the trajectories of Walloon dairy farmers exploring alternatives to the delivery of milk to these mainstream dairy cooperatives. We focused on the territories situated to the east of the Walloon Region, where dairy farming represents 75% of farming revenues. Alternatives consist either of processing milk on farm or in concluding a contract with a cheese processor collecting milk directly from farmers. Our objective was to understand the issues faced in these alternative trajectories and the reason why these alternatives remained marginal. We designed a qualitative case study based on interviews with farmers and local cheese processors. We mobilized evolutionary approaches on the stability and transitions of systems and approaches of change at the farmer level. It appears that the alternative trajectories remain embedded in a broader dairy context. The lock-ins emerging from this context determine the evolution of the farming model towards intensification and the individual identity and capabilities of farmers. We present a model of interconnected and embedded lock-ins, from the organizational frame of the regime to the individual frame. This model illustrates how the agency articulates with structural dynamics. We propose structural measures in the organization of agricultural education and in terms of support to alternative supply chains that will enhance agency in favor of a change.
Véronique De Herde; Kevin Maréchal; Philippe V. Baret. Lock-Ins and Agency: Towards an Embedded Approach of Individual Pathways in the Walloon Dairy Sector. Sustainability 2019, 11, 4405 .
AMA StyleVéronique De Herde, Kevin Maréchal, Philippe V. Baret. Lock-Ins and Agency: Towards an Embedded Approach of Individual Pathways in the Walloon Dairy Sector. Sustainability. 2019; 11 (16):4405.
Chicago/Turabian StyleVéronique De Herde; Kevin Maréchal; Philippe V. Baret. 2019. "Lock-Ins and Agency: Towards an Embedded Approach of Individual Pathways in the Walloon Dairy Sector." Sustainability 11, no. 16: 4405.