Input reductions: technical changes – but what next? Lock-in effects and pathways for change across the agri-food system

This article examines how the potential for reducing inputs in cereal farming, despite being well-supported by scientific evidence, are limited by lock-in effects within the agri-food system, and more specifically by lock-in effects occurring downstream of this system. A socio-historical approach demonstrates how, over time, a trajectory of intensification has developed, gradually involving a wide range of actors at all levels of the sector and within the relevant institutions, and becoming ‘locked in’ ’ over time, preventing certain reversals due to the interdependence of stakeholders, institutions and practices, despite the dead-ends that may characterise this trajectory. A survey of sector stakeholders, including cooperatives and millers, helps to capture their positions regarding trade-offs between productivity and quality in their choice of varieties, thereby illustrating the practical limitations of using variety selection as a lever. An analysis of the quality initiatives implemented in the bread wheat sector then shows that these are aimed much more at traceability and market segmentation than at reducing inputs. Finally, we shall see that the promotion of diversification crops linked to the extension of crop rotations constitutes a major stumbling block for the stakeholders interviewed, particularly the cooperatives. This highlights issues of governance and the organisation of supply chains, on which the case of certain localised ‘alternative’ initiatives linking the various links in the system offers food for thought