Cette communication s'inscrit dans le cadre d'une recherche menee par le CIRAD-SAR et div... more Cette communication s'inscrit dans le cadre d'une recherche menee par le CIRAD-SAR et divers partenaires africains sur l'evolution de l'identification et de la gestion de la qualite agro-alimentaires liee au processus d'urbanisation. Elle s'appuie sur le cas d'un condiment traditionnel des zones de savanes de l'Afrique de l'ouest : le soumbala. Ce nom generique regroupe en fait des produits aux gouts, textures et formes legerement differents et propres a des groupes socioculturels et a des regions specifiques. L'urbanisation a cependant entraine le developpement d'une production artisanale de soumbala plus "standard". A partir d'enquete aupres des consommateurs, les auteurs essaient de repondre aux questions suivantes. L'evolution des procedures de qualification de ce condiment liee au contexte d'urbanisation, conduit-elle a la reduction progressive du marche des soumbalas "traditionnels" (specifiques a des ...
This communication relies on a movie sequence from a participative session in the transnational R... more This communication relies on a movie sequence from a participative session in the transnational Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).We took the video in a plenary session composed of around 800 participants, mainly European and Asian organisations, debating on sustainability issues to foster a global standard for sustainable palm oil. This sequence shows the moment when an Indonesian farmer took the floor to state very unknown concerns of family farmers and local communities affected by the expansion of palm oil plantations in Indonesia. Although considered important by the small farmers delegation, this public speaking was perceived as a failure by many of the other participants and was disqualified. For European participants, even for European NGO representatives who recognized that the content of the message was appropriate, this public speaking was perceived as “too emotional”. For Asian companies, it was seen as ”impolite”. We used this video sequence and other ones showi...
Abstract Global private sustainability standards in agriculture today govern a range of commoditi... more Abstract Global private sustainability standards in agriculture today govern a range of commodities produced in the tropics. Our study analyses the most well-established of these standards, namely the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). We show how, far from being a market device restricted to re-organising global markets in palm oil, RSPO standardisation has wider consequences spatially re-distributing power with territorial effects. Territorialisation occurs through two processes: a strategic and operational process linked to the fabrication and application of procedural rules; a socio-technological process linked to the valorisation of managerial approaches to sustainability. Over time, these twin processes have institutionalised a transnational political space of action with territorial properties. These include: new frontiers of political authority de-bordering national jurisdiction (geographically connecting local scale oil palm estates and plantations with a transversal global supply chain stretching from producing to consuming countries); historical connection; internal coherence and imposition of managerial practices and discourses, including managerial constructions of interdependencies between people, nature and artefacts; prime beneficiaries (large southeast Asian growers, international environmental NGOs and (mainly) European downstream firms); marginalised people (independent smallholders and communities in Malaysia and Indonesia). In this manner, RSPO reinforces its political power and authority over a managerial form of sustainability of palm oil production through territorialising it. Ultimately, this transnational political space of action comes into interaction (and, potentially, conflict) with other political spaces of action and territorial projects as pursued by local people, other NGOs or Malaysian and Indonesian state governments.
In reaction to Greenpeace campaigns denouncing the impact of oil palm plantations in Southeast As... more In reaction to Greenpeace campaigns denouncing the impact of oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia, Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) – a major actor in the palm oil sector – adopted a zero-deforestation policy. The implementation of this policy raised a simple, albeit tricky, question: what is a forest? In response, Greenpeace, GAR and a consultancy firm developed a methodology for forest classification called the High Carbon Stock (HCS) Approach. Employing a vegetation classification based primarily on a threshold of carbon sequestration, the method identifies which forested zones to protect from conversion to agriculture. While currently gaining resonance in the realm of sustainability standards, its implementation in Indonesia and Liberia encountered resistance and criticism by rural dwellers and social NGOs. How did HCS advocates integrate local peoples’ concerns, interests and claims to compose commonality? By analysing the HCS methodology's content, implementation and progressive adaptation, this article shows how HCS advocates favoured a specific mode of composition: one that fits a liberal grammar and that has specific implications on the valuation of forest and cultivable lands. The HCS approach is thus more than a data collection tool; it encapsulates and reinforces a particular vision of the environment and how people should relate to it.
Sustainable Development and Tropical Agri-chains, 2017
Mechanisms to standardize sustainable agricultural practices first emerged in the early 2000s wit... more Mechanisms to standardize sustainable agricultural practices first emerged in the early 2000s with the goal of establishing responsible rules of corporate behaviour. Based on voluntary commitments by firms, these mechanisms are usually structured around a particular agricultural product and bring together the global value chain’s various actors (producers, buyers, processors, retailers), as well as NGOs, banks, and sometimes governments, to define and monitor sustainable production practices. They aim to regulate the environmental and social impacts of agriculture, especially large-scale industrial agriculture. And yet, some authors have noted the difficulty of ‘internalizing’ the negative effects and costs that international trade makes invisible, due to a ‘distance’ effect. By basing itself on the work of Thomas Princen (1997), this chapter explores the ability of standardization mechanisms to make visible again the effects that are ‘obscured’ by distance and the strategic action of firms and governments. Distance is understood here in terms of different dimensions: geographical, but also (and particularly) pertaining to contractual asymmetries; a limited cognitive ability of interpretation in an exchange between ‘foreign’ people and places; or a large number of intermediaries. From an empirical analysis of standardization mechanisms and a literature review, we show that sustainability standards have brushed aside part of the social and environmental criticism raised in a wider public debate, much like they exclude certain concerns raised by the affected people themselves. Characterized as a form of ‘government by the stakeholders’, such mechanisms in fact lead to the depoliticization of the debate and therefore to the exclusion of certain political perspectives and expressions of the common good. Moreover, they deliberately ignore some relationships that people have with their environment, thus making invisible part of the damage. Thus, these sustainability standards simply do not take some of negative impacts of the exports of biomass by industrial agriculture into account. These mechanisms have so far excluded or dismissed the constructions of sustainability whose aim was precisely to reduce the various dimensions of distance.
Le developpement de la filiere palmier a huile en Cote d'Ivoire a partir de 1963 repond a un ... more Le developpement de la filiere palmier a huile en Cote d'Ivoire a partir de 1963 repond a un souci de diversification des cultures de rente et s'est traduit par des orientations economiques essentiellement industrielles, pendant une trentaine d'annees : mise au point et diffusion d'une variete selectionnee, transformation des regimes par des usines de grandes capacites, creation de plantations industrielles et de plantations villageoises "encadrees". Pendant ces 30 annees, et surtout depuis que la filiere a ete liberalisee, d'autres systemes de production et de transformation ont continue a se developper. Ils sont bases sur une diversite des semences, des itineraires techniques et des procedes de transformation, qui s'inscrivent le plus souvent dans un territoire. Cette diversite correspond a une segmentation de la demande, qui distingue, y compris en Abidjan, l'huile de Man ou de l'ouest, "l'huile de palmier naturel" ou "...
La dominance d'un systeme de production artisanal, informel et a priori diffus ou «incontrola... more La dominance d'un systeme de production artisanal, informel et a priori diffus ou «incontrolable» et l'accroissement rapide des populations urbaines en Afrique sub-saharienne conduit a une volonte de standardisation des systemes de production, justifiee par un besoin d'amelioration de la qualite des produits : industrialisation des procedes de transformation alimentaire, normalisation des produits ou des procedes, etiquetage obligatoire, etc. On peut cependant prealablement se poser la question, a partir du moment ou ils existent, de la pertinence de systemes de production existants, bases sur une diversite des ressources locales. En matiere de qualite, il apparait que si l'on ancre au depart l'analyse sur les modes de qualification locaux et la construction des elements qui permettent la qualification, les ressources locales mises en oeuvre dans la production alimentaire se devoilent d'une facon beaucoup plus positive. L'objectivation de la qualite des p...
Les modes de qualification du soumbala, produit local au Burkina Faso, nous renseignent sur la di... more Les modes de qualification du soumbala, produit local au Burkina Faso, nous renseignent sur la diversite des coordinations qui resolvent les tensions entre les exigences du local et du global. Sous sa forme locale "traditionnelle", le soumbala est confronte a un probleme de commercialisation dans le dispositif marchand de "l'echange a distance". Ces tensions sont apaisees par la standardisation du produit, sous la forme d'un soumbala "semi-industriel", mais celui-ci perd alors ses attributs du local. Entre ces deux etats du soumbala, les groupements feminins urbains proposent une mise en forme qui reconcilie les besoins de personnalisation du produit et les exigences de commerce urbain. Ce cas nous renseigne sur le role que joue l'equipement civique d'une action collective orientee vers une ethique de la solidarite et de l'egalite, dans la confiance des consommateurs. (Resume d'auteur)
Cette communication s'inscrit dans le cadre d'une recherche menee par le CIRAD-SAR et div... more Cette communication s'inscrit dans le cadre d'une recherche menee par le CIRAD-SAR et divers partenaires africains sur l'evolution de l'identification et de la gestion de la qualite agro-alimentaires liee au processus d'urbanisation. Elle s'appuie sur le cas d'un condiment traditionnel des zones de savanes de l'Afrique de l'ouest : le soumbala. Ce nom generique regroupe en fait des produits aux gouts, textures et formes legerement differents et propres a des groupes socioculturels et a des regions specifiques. L'urbanisation a cependant entraine le developpement d'une production artisanale de soumbala plus "standard". A partir d'enquete aupres des consommateurs, les auteurs essaient de repondre aux questions suivantes. L'evolution des procedures de qualification de ce condiment liee au contexte d'urbanisation, conduit-elle a la reduction progressive du marche des soumbalas "traditionnels" (specifiques a des ...
This communication relies on a movie sequence from a participative session in the transnational R... more This communication relies on a movie sequence from a participative session in the transnational Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).We took the video in a plenary session composed of around 800 participants, mainly European and Asian organisations, debating on sustainability issues to foster a global standard for sustainable palm oil. This sequence shows the moment when an Indonesian farmer took the floor to state very unknown concerns of family farmers and local communities affected by the expansion of palm oil plantations in Indonesia. Although considered important by the small farmers delegation, this public speaking was perceived as a failure by many of the other participants and was disqualified. For European participants, even for European NGO representatives who recognized that the content of the message was appropriate, this public speaking was perceived as “too emotional”. For Asian companies, it was seen as ”impolite”. We used this video sequence and other ones showi...
Abstract Global private sustainability standards in agriculture today govern a range of commoditi... more Abstract Global private sustainability standards in agriculture today govern a range of commodities produced in the tropics. Our study analyses the most well-established of these standards, namely the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). We show how, far from being a market device restricted to re-organising global markets in palm oil, RSPO standardisation has wider consequences spatially re-distributing power with territorial effects. Territorialisation occurs through two processes: a strategic and operational process linked to the fabrication and application of procedural rules; a socio-technological process linked to the valorisation of managerial approaches to sustainability. Over time, these twin processes have institutionalised a transnational political space of action with territorial properties. These include: new frontiers of political authority de-bordering national jurisdiction (geographically connecting local scale oil palm estates and plantations with a transversal global supply chain stretching from producing to consuming countries); historical connection; internal coherence and imposition of managerial practices and discourses, including managerial constructions of interdependencies between people, nature and artefacts; prime beneficiaries (large southeast Asian growers, international environmental NGOs and (mainly) European downstream firms); marginalised people (independent smallholders and communities in Malaysia and Indonesia). In this manner, RSPO reinforces its political power and authority over a managerial form of sustainability of palm oil production through territorialising it. Ultimately, this transnational political space of action comes into interaction (and, potentially, conflict) with other political spaces of action and territorial projects as pursued by local people, other NGOs or Malaysian and Indonesian state governments.
In reaction to Greenpeace campaigns denouncing the impact of oil palm plantations in Southeast As... more In reaction to Greenpeace campaigns denouncing the impact of oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia, Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) – a major actor in the palm oil sector – adopted a zero-deforestation policy. The implementation of this policy raised a simple, albeit tricky, question: what is a forest? In response, Greenpeace, GAR and a consultancy firm developed a methodology for forest classification called the High Carbon Stock (HCS) Approach. Employing a vegetation classification based primarily on a threshold of carbon sequestration, the method identifies which forested zones to protect from conversion to agriculture. While currently gaining resonance in the realm of sustainability standards, its implementation in Indonesia and Liberia encountered resistance and criticism by rural dwellers and social NGOs. How did HCS advocates integrate local peoples’ concerns, interests and claims to compose commonality? By analysing the HCS methodology's content, implementation and progressive adaptation, this article shows how HCS advocates favoured a specific mode of composition: one that fits a liberal grammar and that has specific implications on the valuation of forest and cultivable lands. The HCS approach is thus more than a data collection tool; it encapsulates and reinforces a particular vision of the environment and how people should relate to it.
Sustainable Development and Tropical Agri-chains, 2017
Mechanisms to standardize sustainable agricultural practices first emerged in the early 2000s wit... more Mechanisms to standardize sustainable agricultural practices first emerged in the early 2000s with the goal of establishing responsible rules of corporate behaviour. Based on voluntary commitments by firms, these mechanisms are usually structured around a particular agricultural product and bring together the global value chain’s various actors (producers, buyers, processors, retailers), as well as NGOs, banks, and sometimes governments, to define and monitor sustainable production practices. They aim to regulate the environmental and social impacts of agriculture, especially large-scale industrial agriculture. And yet, some authors have noted the difficulty of ‘internalizing’ the negative effects and costs that international trade makes invisible, due to a ‘distance’ effect. By basing itself on the work of Thomas Princen (1997), this chapter explores the ability of standardization mechanisms to make visible again the effects that are ‘obscured’ by distance and the strategic action of firms and governments. Distance is understood here in terms of different dimensions: geographical, but also (and particularly) pertaining to contractual asymmetries; a limited cognitive ability of interpretation in an exchange between ‘foreign’ people and places; or a large number of intermediaries. From an empirical analysis of standardization mechanisms and a literature review, we show that sustainability standards have brushed aside part of the social and environmental criticism raised in a wider public debate, much like they exclude certain concerns raised by the affected people themselves. Characterized as a form of ‘government by the stakeholders’, such mechanisms in fact lead to the depoliticization of the debate and therefore to the exclusion of certain political perspectives and expressions of the common good. Moreover, they deliberately ignore some relationships that people have with their environment, thus making invisible part of the damage. Thus, these sustainability standards simply do not take some of negative impacts of the exports of biomass by industrial agriculture into account. These mechanisms have so far excluded or dismissed the constructions of sustainability whose aim was precisely to reduce the various dimensions of distance.
Le developpement de la filiere palmier a huile en Cote d'Ivoire a partir de 1963 repond a un ... more Le developpement de la filiere palmier a huile en Cote d'Ivoire a partir de 1963 repond a un souci de diversification des cultures de rente et s'est traduit par des orientations economiques essentiellement industrielles, pendant une trentaine d'annees : mise au point et diffusion d'une variete selectionnee, transformation des regimes par des usines de grandes capacites, creation de plantations industrielles et de plantations villageoises "encadrees". Pendant ces 30 annees, et surtout depuis que la filiere a ete liberalisee, d'autres systemes de production et de transformation ont continue a se developper. Ils sont bases sur une diversite des semences, des itineraires techniques et des procedes de transformation, qui s'inscrivent le plus souvent dans un territoire. Cette diversite correspond a une segmentation de la demande, qui distingue, y compris en Abidjan, l'huile de Man ou de l'ouest, "l'huile de palmier naturel" ou "...
La dominance d'un systeme de production artisanal, informel et a priori diffus ou «incontrola... more La dominance d'un systeme de production artisanal, informel et a priori diffus ou «incontrolable» et l'accroissement rapide des populations urbaines en Afrique sub-saharienne conduit a une volonte de standardisation des systemes de production, justifiee par un besoin d'amelioration de la qualite des produits : industrialisation des procedes de transformation alimentaire, normalisation des produits ou des procedes, etiquetage obligatoire, etc. On peut cependant prealablement se poser la question, a partir du moment ou ils existent, de la pertinence de systemes de production existants, bases sur une diversite des ressources locales. En matiere de qualite, il apparait que si l'on ancre au depart l'analyse sur les modes de qualification locaux et la construction des elements qui permettent la qualification, les ressources locales mises en oeuvre dans la production alimentaire se devoilent d'une facon beaucoup plus positive. L'objectivation de la qualite des p...
Les modes de qualification du soumbala, produit local au Burkina Faso, nous renseignent sur la di... more Les modes de qualification du soumbala, produit local au Burkina Faso, nous renseignent sur la diversite des coordinations qui resolvent les tensions entre les exigences du local et du global. Sous sa forme locale "traditionnelle", le soumbala est confronte a un probleme de commercialisation dans le dispositif marchand de "l'echange a distance". Ces tensions sont apaisees par la standardisation du produit, sous la forme d'un soumbala "semi-industriel", mais celui-ci perd alors ses attributs du local. Entre ces deux etats du soumbala, les groupements feminins urbains proposent une mise en forme qui reconcilie les besoins de personnalisation du produit et les exigences de commerce urbain. Ce cas nous renseigne sur le role que joue l'equipement civique d'une action collective orientee vers une ethique de la solidarite et de l'egalite, dans la confiance des consommateurs. (Resume d'auteur)
• Several sustainability certification schemes have been developed for palm oil; however, the fie... more • Several sustainability certification schemes have been developed for palm oil; however, the field impacts of these schemes remain highly uncertain. The Sustainable Palm Oil Production (SPOP) project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), was aimed at consolidating and deepening the scientific basis of these schemes. • SPOP field work undertaken in Indonesia and Cameroon highlighted the large variability in practices and impacts of oil palm systems. Our main results related to the uncovering of the multiplicity of growers and their trajectories, and identifying room for improvement and the need for recommendations adapted to the various grower contexts and strategies. • The SPOP project made it explicit that visions of sustainability and global challenges vary greatly among growers and other stakeholders involved in the palm oil sector. These diverging conceptions are most likely to induce bottlenecks in the definition and implementation of good practices and should be accounted for in the refinement of sustainability criteria. • Within the SPOP project, we investigated possible futures for oil palm using participatory prospective analyses and multi-agent-based modeling work. Our research work showed that capacity development and the organizational capacity of smallholders, fair partnerships and combined forms of governance are key drivers in ensuring the uptake of good practices and sustainable development at the landscape scale.
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