During the last 2 decades, a growing literature has underlined potential effects of Climate Change (CC) on economic development, environment and wellbeing of population especially in tropical rural areas. While contributing to CC, agriculture is also strongly affected by CC and climate variability. Hence adaptation to CC has become a stringent challenge in vulnerable agricultural tropical landscape. To face this challenge, concepts to tackle CC issues in agriculture have been proposed, CC national adaptation policies framework have been formulated, and local initiatives have been flourishing. However, the lack of articulation between interpretations of concepts, policy design, levels and sectors in the implementation of policies, and farmers’ situation and practices may lead to maladaptation processes. The objective of ARTIMIX project is to determine the conditions of successful design and implementation of articulated adaptation to CC policy mixes in order to foster ecological transition in tropical vulnerable agricultural landscapes. For this purpose, the project will 1) analyze the concepts proposed to tackle adaptation issue in agriculture (Agro-ecology, Climate Smart Agriculture, Ecosystem Based Adaptation) and the way they are integrated in policies; 2) Identify the enabling and limiting factors for effective implementation of CC adaptation policies, considering their coordination and interactions with sectorial policies; 3) Characterize how current policy mix are affecting farmers’ practices and their related environmental, technical-economic and social outcomes. The ARTIMIX will be implemented by a multidisciplinary team encompassing policy scientists, economists, sociologists, agronomists, animal and environmental scientists. It will be implemented in Ultramarine French territories (Guadeloupe and Martinique), Brazil and Colombia. The innovation of the ARTIMIX project is twofold. First, it will develop and test an integrated and multilevel approach to address the different phases of policy cycle (design, implementation, effects) and the different levels from national to farmer level with emphases on the local arena. Second, it will support mainstreaming of CC adaptation in local actors and policies that are lagging in Martinique and Guadeloupe, mobilizing experience from Latin American countries (Colombia and Brazil) that are developing policies to tackle similar issues regarding CC adaptation. The expected overall outcomes of ARTIMIX is to contribute to the design or adjustment of CC adaptation policy mix that takes into account farmers’ strategy and local actors’ agenda. Specific scientific results will encompass: 1) A characterization of convergence and divergence between concepts to tackle CC adaptation and an assessment of their integration in the design of CC adaptation policy frameworks, 2) An identification of the factors affecting the implementation of the adaptation to CC policies and an analysis of synergies and trade-offs between instruments aiming to enhance farmers’ CC adaptation capacities; 3) An assessment of practices promoted by policies regarding their ability to increase farmers’ CC adaptation capacity and their socio-economic and environmental outcomes. In addition to publications and diffusion in academics and large audience, the results will be shared with stakeholders in the research sites through workshops. They will enable to define a set of specific recommendations: 1) for a better integration of concepts in the design of context-specific coherent policy mix aiming to strengthen farmers’ adaptation capacities; 2) for improving articulation among actors in implementation of relevant policy mix regarding local conditions; 3) for supporting farmers’ adoption of practices improving their adaptation capacity to face CC.

By using the French West Indies as a field of application, this fundamental research program emphasizes the adaptation of agrosystems in small island territories to global changes. The choice of these small island territories results from the extent of issues related to the ongoing global mutations they face to and from their representative features in terms of diversity in the tropical environment. Global changes that affect these areas involve a key sector: agriculture. Therefore, this reality invites to wonder about the sustainability of this sector. We assume that some agrotechnical, organizational, institutional and territorial evolutions should be implemented in order to promote a whole viable agriculture. Our research fits into several works on viability, adaptation, sustainability and resilience with mathematical interpretations of the issues tackled from these concepts. Empirically, the mathematical theory of viability allows to simulate the systems paths (i.e. agrosystems) in order to detect the set of evolutions viable in a context of uncertainty. The viability algorithm integrates identified but unpredictable shocks allowing to define the targets that are conceivable from a sustainable development perspective and specifying the rules of decision useful to reach them, despite some temporal and technical constraints imposed to the different agents in the system. Our project includes five basic steps. From a comparative viewpoint, we will give evidence on the current state of viability concerning the farming systems (1). Then, the analysis will lead to the elaboration of socio-economic and agro-ecological indicators (2). Thereafter, we will analyse the evolution path of farming systems by considering global changes (i.e. characterisation of the future state of farming systems) (3). Hence, we will examine the adaptive capacity of farming systems (4), namely their capacities of response against shocks and more generally we will wonder about the governance of the agricultural sector in the study cases (5). Depending on the simulated scenarii on the global changes, this research should lead to a guide of the main adaptive options the agents acting in the agricultural sector should focus on. From an action research methodology, the mathematical tool of viability will serve as an instrument to organize interactive exchange among agents and to promote local governance. The aim consists in shedding light on agents' behaviour and decisions. The scope of the interdisciplinarity of this research program founds its originality since it associates economics, geography, management science and agronomy, animal science, ecology with mathematics, in order to better specify the adaptive capacity of agriculture to global changes in tropical small island territories.

In the Western world essentially, the “animal issue” is one of the important parameters of social relations. The theories about animal liberation imply radical new relationships with them and possibly a break with domestic animals. Also, the “animal issue” potentially entails economic changes. Criticisms about the animal production industry but also about numerous other sectors related to animals (circus, zoos, bull fighting…) undermine these activities and question their relevance. These criticisms weaken the workers themselves who face new values, sensitivities and representations that they did not anticipate and are not prepared to cope with. The research done on the role of animals in our societies, irrespective of the scientific field or the country in which it’s carried out, forgets the fundamental root of our relationship with animals : work. The “animal issue” study does not take into account work experience of several millennia with animals. The work dimension associated with animals is totally absent from scientific, social and ethic controversies. Our goal is to question the place of animals at the workplace. Our strong assumption based upon our primary studies, is to say that animals are not simply objects but are also actors. In other words, our relationship with animals at the workplace is not only explained by our supposed domination, since the Neolithic Age, but is based on interactive intelligence and bargaining with animals. These conditions make possible sustainable work with them. Our goal is to highlight the animal as a worker, understand how animals, depending on their species and/or whatever their species, subjectively interact with work. The theoretical framework is based on the social sciences, especially sociology, but also anthropology, psychology of work and philosophy. We will also find support from eco-ethology and agronomy. This is why the project is built upon multi-partnerships even though sociology is its backbone. The methods that we set up are those of the social sciences (interviews, questionnaires, observations, analysis with or without computing help). Also, SMEs will be incorporated into our study in order to bring actual work experience to our research. The output of our research will be scientific, economic and social. They will feed the understanding of the human/animal relationship by introducing the working issue as a new angle in our scientific papers and books. It will help the sustainability of companies who work with animals, specifically in animal husbandry as well as in organic farming, by producing tools to transform their practices. Because communication about research is embedded in research itself, we set up partnerships to publish our work and conduct round table discussions about our findings. Agricultural education is one focus; another is the willingness to broadcast to a large audience thanks to a partnership with the radio station, France Inter.

Agroecology, or, more accurately, several of its currents, has gain in recent years an important recognition, transforming from an “anti-establishment” model against the Green Revolution to an appropriate (or befitted) model to meet the challenges of global change. The success of agroecology is undeniable: of all currents critiquing the green revolution, this is the only one that has succeeded in being recognized as a viable agricultural model. This transformative process is accompanied by strong debates about what is or should be defined by the term agroecology, revealing thus the importance of speaking about agroecology in the plural form. The growing recognition of agroecologies is indeed marked by an increasing variety of forms of agriculture claiming themselves as forms of agroecology. If agroecology was an already very diverse field, its public recognition exacerbates this variability. In the last few years agroecology grew from a set of discreet alternative forms of agriculture that challenged the conventional agricultural model to a wide variety of forms having in common to be presented as more sustainable forms of agriculture. The IDAE project aims at understanding the processes at stake, which we will approach as various and differentiated institutionalization processes. We will carefully investigate how the different agroecologies have stabilized through various institutional supports, how they interact among themselves and transform each other, and which effects these institutionalization processes have on agroecological practices on the ground. We will identify and characterize the forms of institutionalization of agro-ecologies at the local, national and transnational scale. We will study the institutionalization of agroecologies at the inter/transnational scale in order to understand the overall context in which this process unfolds and to better contextualize the national case studies. Three large agricultural countries, where the debates on agroecology are both important and different, will be particularly studied: France, Brazil and Argentina. In each country, particular case studies will be analyzed at a fairly local level. Scientific dynamics of the project we will base on two approaches: an approach through the study of the various domains where the institutionalization takes place: i.e. economic, political and scientific; an approach through case studies, allowing to observe and report on the institutionalization processes at stake. The work will be structured around six work packages (WP). In the first (WP 1) the analysis of the institutionalization of agro-ecologies in France, Brazil and Argentina will be contextualized in view of global scale processes, by looking at how different agro-ecologies circulate. We will analyze in each country the policy (WP 2) and market dimensions (WP 3) of the institutionalization processes of agroecologies. Then we will be looking at how those processes result in a rearrangement of knowledge (WP 4). Finally, based on research conducted in the previous work packages, the last one (WP 5) will be devoted to the analysis of hybridization, coexistence and confrontations between conventional agriculture and agroecologies (WP 5). A coordination work package (WP 0) will be responsible for connecting the different work packages and partners to produce integrative studies.