Understanding farmers’ motivations to produce pulses and promote better agroecological practices

ABSTRACT

Legumes have multiple advantages that meet agroecological challenges. However, many farmers are reluctant to include them permanently in their crop rotations. We investigated farmers’ motivations for growing pulses in a case study of a French cooperative which has developed a pulses sector, by analyzing data from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Environmental and social values were more present among organic than conventional farmers; the latter were more concerned about their image. The results suggest that mechanisms to promote knowledge sharing among farmers would be valuable and highlight the intermediary role between local stakeholders that cooperatives can play to support agroecological policies.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Pulses
• agroecological transition
• farmers’ motivations
• agri-food system
• cooperative
• public policy

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the reviewers for their help in the improvement of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This type of presentation is increasingly used in the literature, following the example of publications in the medical field, e.g., Soares, Patricia, João Victor Rocha, et al. 2021. Factors Associated with COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy. Vaccines 9 (3): 300. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9030300.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the PSDR 4 program (ATA-RI project; 2016-2020) funded by INRAE and the Occitanie Region.