Co-design of agroecological viticultural practices through participatory action research

Winegrowers, in their diversity of practices, nature conservation associations, elected officials, citizens, industry advisors, ODG  members, companies, and researchers in agronomic sciences and humanities have developed, together, a method of participatory research-action 'REPERE'.
Its epistemological framework values complexity and dissensus in different pedoclimatic, socio-cultural and economic contexts, in France, Switzerland and Germany.

The projects focused on the design of alternatives to herbicides, biodiversity restoration, vine resilience to water stress, and fungicide reduction. The ASIRPA study underlines that knowledge circulates, as soon as it is produced, on the initiative of actors who, without intermediation, promote agroecological changes on a territorial scale.
The environmental impacts are linked to redesigned viticultural practices, readily the third year of the project, with half of the committed vines surfaces cultivated without herbicides, and grassed with wild plants labelled Végétal local. The reduction in costs of the redesigned practices inspired by organic and biodynamic viticulture, with fewer phytosanitary products and less work in the vineyards, is the major economic impact.
The social impacts are linked to the structuring of a trinational network of about 100 stakeholders.

This participatory action research, by mobilizing all the stakeholders from the outset of the questions, renews the interactions between the human sciences and the agronomic sciences, and produces knowledge and action at the same time.