By asserting a sociological ambition enriched with an economic viewpoint, the PADAC project proposes to study in real time over a four-year period the emergence of digital platforms in the agricultural sector, the dynamics of collective action and the resulting changes in work organisation. More and more traditional sectors are being pushed by the emergence of digital platforms, so that some authors do not hesitate to talk about platform capitalism (Srnicek, 2017). The latter challenge the traditional forms which frame exchanges and regulate markets. While this observation is shared, there is little work that analyses the development of platforms and the controversies they generate at the level of an economic sector. The ambition of the PADAC research project is to study to what extent the emergence of digital platforms in an economic sector - the agricultural sector - contributes to redefining the dimensions of collective action and institutional dynamics. Indeed, while for nearly a century the agricultural sector has been deeply structured by professional agricultural organizations based on the principles of collective action, the ability of digital agricultural platforms to profoundly challenge them and to regulate this sector economically and politically raises questions. These platforms compete with the traditional professional organisations to which the State has entrusted political and economic regulatory tools and thus disrupt the political organisation of this sector. They raise the question of regulating this sector in which the financial logic of platforms is opposed to the political logic of traditional organizations. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods will show the complexity of platforms’ institutional work imply to study at the same time multilevel networks involving them, how agricultural actors use these new tools, as well as normative choices in regulatory controversies of all of these actors at different levels. So this project is composed by three different but interrelated scales. At the scale of the agricultural sector, we will study the dynamics of alliances and oppositions between platforms and professional agricultural organizations. This will allow us to explore the regulatory process by articulating normative and structural positions. We assume that platforms and takeover bids weave relationships of both competition and alliance, in order to build new modalities for the framework of the agricultural profession and institutional coexistence. At the level of the platforms themselves, we will analyse the various dissemination and development strategies they put in place as well as the instruments and methods they mobilise to establish their legitimacy within the agricultural profession and public authorities. The fundamental question is to understand the long-term regulation of this sector, by identifying the models that can spread and become standards. At the level of farmers and their farms, we will study the use they make of digital platforms. The aim will be to understand to what extent the use of platforms changes farmers' practices and how farmers update or not the new rules of action and coordination carried by the platforms. Keywords : Digital platforms ; Institutionalization ; Collective action ; Agricultural sector ; Social Networks ; Uses

Farms and farming systems in North and Western Europe are generally highly specialised, with little integration between crop and livestock production within farms and between farms within a region. Yet, improved integration, be it at farm or landscape level, offers substantial potential for enhanced circularity of utilization of biomass, especially for co-products (e.g. residues, manure, waste). The main objective of this research project is to co-design locally improved, innovative circular crop and livestock systems in North and Western Europe. To reach this objective, we will assess alternative utility options of biomass and co-products in integrated crop-livestock systems at field, farm and landscape level. Alternatives will be assessed in terms of nutrient cycling, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration and agricultural productivity. It is hypothesized that co-product utilisation options can be identified that are beneficial in terms of climate change mitigation and lead to more resilient and adapted systems. We will apply our systems approach and participatory and quantitative methods in four European case study regions situated in the Netherlands, Denmark, Scotland and France. All four case regions are characterised by highly specialized crop and livestock farming systems, with innovation and transition pathways towards integration of crop and livestock production being initiated. We expect these pathways to benefit from a systematic, science-based and participatory assessment of current and alternative utilisation options of co-products across crop and livestock activities and farms, in a landscape context. The project takes a systems perspective, distinguishing activity (field and livestock units), on- and inter-farm integration and landscape levels. Using focus group discussions, current and alternative co-product utilisation options will be gathered for each of the case studies. These will be quantitatively assessed in terms of nutrient cycling, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration and productivity. Using literature and participatory inputs we will add semi-quantitative assessments of social and economic performance of utilisation options. The environmental, economic and social indicators will be brought together in a management guide for on- and inter farm integration. Finally, a serious game will be developed to explore opportunities for enhanced circularity of crop-livestock integration and co-product utilisation at landscape level. Farming, agricultural and circular economy stakeholders (e.g. renewable energy, green fertilisers, etc.) will be employing the game to understand promises, lock-ins and ways forward. The serious game will also be adapted for use in BSc and MSc level courses in the four countries to enhance learning on circularity of future generations of scientists and stakeholders.

Creeping perennial weeds have strong impacts on arable production, causing crop quantity and quality losses unless controlled. These weeds ensure their lifeform by subterranean storage organs (e.g., roots, rhizomes). Besides seed dispersal, their subterranean clonal systems facilitate survival and spatial spread in arable fields by vegetative sprouting. Classified as geophytes which regenerate their above ground plant biomass from subterranean sources, they can in general occur in different agroecosystems. Some creeping perennial species are strongly adapted to arable land where intensive crop production occurs. The common practices of arable farmers to control creeping perennial weeds are intensive inversion tillage and herbicides (especially glyphosate). However, intensive inversion tillage by ploughing not only consumes lots of energy, but also diminishes the soil biological activities. Indiscriminate use of herbicides has side effects on human health, non-target species, and the wider environment (e.g., water quality). Agro-ecological management claims that sustainable agricultural systems should rely as much as possible on ecological processes to ensure long-term food security, human welfare and environmental protection. Indeed, integrated weed management for perennial weeds demands to explore, compare and evaluate such novel strategies. The objective of AC/DC-weeds is to implement more and better agro-ecological management for creeping perennials in arable farming. The overall aim of this project is to reduce plough-tillage in organic and conventional farming, and to replace glyphosate in the latter system. AC/DC-weeds involves seven partners from five European countries. These countries represent a considerable area of central and northern Europe. The three year project contains seven Work Packages, each aiming to use the most advanced methodology to achieve the following research objectives: • Through field experiments, examine the perennial weed control efficiency of novel mechanical tillage tools (‘root cutter’), subsidiary crops, and bioactive herbicides; • Conduct meta-analyses to quantify the efficiency of competition process by subsidiary crops on perennial weed regulation, to analyse the sources of variability and to relate the effects to crop traits; • By literature review and small scale experiments, expand ecological data and knowledge for three most important perennial weed species in central and northern Europe (Elymus repens, Cirsium arvense and Sonchus arvensis); • Based on the currently best UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) technology, improve mapping procedures of perennial weeds in arable fields; • Develop a new qualitative modelling of perennial weed management based on combined control methods, soil, weather, and the environment; • Design a graphic web tool to support end users with accessible and specific information on the efficiency of management options on perennial weeds; • Explore environmental and economic effects of agro-ecological management strategies to support project communication and dissemination.

In the context of agriculture increasingly relying on groundwater irrigation, it is crucial to develop reliable and applicable methods for assessing the sustainability of agricultural systems under climate change. A wide variety of models have been developed for ex-ante evaluation of management policies or assessment of the impacts of land-use changes. They are commonly used to support decision making by stakeholders through participatory approaches. However, due to the difficulty in implementing truly trans-disciplinary projects, the models rarely represent both the complex biophysical processes at stake in agricultural watersheds and the farmer adaptation strategies to changes. Consequently, these models are not able to adequately account for the spatial and temporal interactions and feed-backs between these two components. The Indian context is an extreme case where the integration of these components is both essential and challenging: the “groundwater revolution” which started three decades ago and induced a well identified “groundwater crisis” with tremendous impacts on water resources and ecosystems, is being carried out by millions of very small farmers owning individual borewells, with a large diversity of practices and strategies. The ATCHA project aims to accompany the adaptation of farming systems to climate change by combining an integrated biophysical model with a participatory approach in a network of experimental watersheds in the Karnataka state. Through a truly trans-disciplinary approach, involving hydrologists, geochemists, soil scientists, agronomists, geographers, economists and sociologists and with a strong participation of Indian partners including scientists, extension service agents and stakeholders, we aim at demonstrating the ability of integrated models to share knowledge between researchers and stakeholders and to co-build and assess scenarios of sustainable development of agriculture. The ATCHA project is based on (1) the strong partnership initiated with the International Joint Laboratory IFCWS (Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences, involving the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) which allowed to build an extensive database in the Berambadi experimental watershed (Critical Zone Observatory, ORE BVET) and (2) a specific Indo-French project (CEFIPRA AICHA, 2013-2016) in which an integrated model combining hydrology (AMBHAS), agronomy (STICS), economy (MoGire) and farmer decision (Namaste) models was developed. The ATCHA project will complement the Sujala III project (2014-2019), led by the Karnataka Watershed Department and in which IFCWS takes part in the coordination of the monitoring carried out in 14 experimental watersheds across the Karnataka state. The ATCHA project is composed of 3 work packages (in addition to the coordination WP): i) development of novel methodologies to gather spatialized information on soils and land use, using both ground and multi-satellite data at high spatial and temporal resolution ii) improvement of the model realism by calibrating a large number of tropical crops and bridging knowledge gaps for modelling nutrient cycles in tropical irrigated agro-systems and iii) development of a participatory approach to build and assess scenarios of adaptation to climate change and its critical assessment. We expect the ATCHA project to produce not only significant scientific advances on the functioning of agro-hydrosystems under high anthropogenic pressure but also to have a strong socio-economic impact, in terms of capacity building for the Indian partners (in particular for crop and agro-system modelling), improving the relevance of advice given to farmers by extension services and the efficiency of public policies.

Aiming to balance greenhouse gas emissions and the sequestering capacities of non-atmospheric sinks, the Paris Agreement reached at the COP 21 in 2015 signals the new centrality of carbon sinks, including soils, as a key means of enabling climate stability. POSCA focuses on the rising promotion of soil as carbon sink in climate policies and how this is reconfiguring the way in which we come to know and manage soil. Long viewed mostly in terms of agricultural fertility, soil is now increasingly viewed as a global stock of underground carbon that we need to measure, map, model, control and optimize. As soil is recast in terms of its place in the global carbon cycle, soils sciences are shifting from an obscure, naturalistic and taxonomy-oriented field, toward new advisory and regulatory roles related to the development of Soil Carbon Sequestration (SCS) methods, metrics and schemes; they are also faced with new uncertainties and tensions regarding the measurement and stability of carbon in soils. POSCA aims to account for the shifting agendas, practices and organisations of soil sciences, defined as a broad network encompassing soil researchers, technicians, and non-academic experts in agricultural, forestry and land planning organizations, as soil is recast as a carbon sink. Relying on a multidisciplinary team of 4 sociologists and 2 soil scientists, POSCA will unpack the reconfiguration of the politics of soil knowledge, defined as the various visions of the type of soil knowledge that matters and their embedment in socio-material infrastructures and organizations. The project will develop a sociological investigation, in France and in the international context, into: soil carbon science (i.e. modelisation and monitoring infrastructures) (WP1); soil carbon regulations (i.e. public and private organisations and initiatives to produce standardized methods and metrics) (WP2); and soil carbon management (i.e. local SCS schemes) (WP3). WP4 is devoted to the project’s coordination. Our key hypothesis is that the politics of soil knowledge are being reconfigured at (i) the epistemological level: from a descriptive, field-based research into the history of soils, to a computer-based and data-intensive predictive research that becomes part of Earth system modelling efforts. (ii) the political level: from a classification-oriented academic field, to a regulatory science providing decision-makers with methods and standards to measure soil carbon. (iii) the economic level: from supporting agricultural and forestry development, to organizing soil carbon accounting metrics and carbon credits markets. Social sciences have paid precious little attention to soil and soil/society relations so far. POSCA has strong innovative potential and will contribute to: (i) Science and Technology Studies (STS) i.e. by scrutinizing the reconfiguration of soil sciences, a broadly neglected discipline in STS; (ii) the Sociology of Climatic Policies i.e. by investigating the development of new SCS organizations and methods at the interface between science, policy and the market; (iii) The Sociology of Carbon Accounting, i.e. by accounting for the expansion of carbon accounting instruments toward soils and their significance for the various agricultural and forestry sectors involved; (iv) Soil Sciences, understood as multidisciplinary field, i.e. by unpacking the ongoing reconfiguration of soil’s meaning and purpose in society. Despite its key ecological and social importance, soil remains widely understood as a stable surface and inert background at the top of which we live and act. In a context of pressing issues of soil degradation at the planetary scale and accelerated climate change, POSCA will contribute to a better social and political recognition of soil not as an inert surface, or a techno-fix for climate change mitigation, but as a three-dimensional ecosystem with key biogeochemical agency.