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Paper long abstract

In apple production, the control of apple scab accounts for around 50% of the Treatment Frequency Index. The use of tolerant varieties is one of the few levers capable of significantly reducing pesticide inputs, both in organic and integrated fruit production systems. Yet their uptake remains limited.

This paper argues that this paradox does not stem from producers’ resistance to transition, but from the commercial and regulatory infrastructures that structure market outlets. Varietal choice is a powerful agronomic lever; however, its viability depends on markets able to absorb and stabilize these productions. Drawing on Infrastructure Studies, we analyse public procurement in collective catering as an infrastructure potentially capable of reconfiguring such outlets. We hypothesize, however, that it remains embedded in socio-material arrangements historically stabilized by the large-scale retail sector (Mazenc and Pahun, 2025): product standardization, centralized purchasing, logistical power, and calculative devices (Callon and Muniesa, 2003). These infrastructures shape upstream which varieties circulate and which remain marginalized. Under such conditions, is the formal capacity of public procurement to draft tender specifications sufficient to transform production practices?

Based on interviews with producers, nursery growers, intermediaries, and actors involved in public procurement, as well as an analysis of past contracts, the study examines the infrastructural, organizational, and institutional conditions that hinder – or enable – the integration of resistant varieties. It shows that varietal transition depends less on actors’ normative intentions than on the effective reconfiguration of existing productive and market infrastructures.

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Paper short abstract

We studied how rice farmers have engaged in commercial farming as a result of irrigated scheme rehabilitation in Cambodia, and then responded to sustainable models proposed lately. We argue that farming trajectories are “scripted” by schemes rehabilitation and emerging commercial infrastructures.

Paper long abstract

Investments in modern irrigation played a major role in transition from subsistence to capital-intensive commercial farming through the "Green revolution" process. The limitations of this model have been widely highlighted, and more sustainable development pathways (e.g. agroecology) are increasingly promoted in response; however, the role of irrigation development within these trajectories remains contested. In Cambodia, water-based intensification and related green-revolution practices (multiple cropping seasons, high yielding varieties, synthetic inputs, mechanization) have emerged relatively recently (circa the late 1990s). The rehabilitation process, drawing on schemes inherited from the Khmer Rouge era, constitutes the main agricultural investment, with priority given to physical infrastructure over institutional support.

This research draws on an empirical case study from an irrigated rice-growing scheme in Battambang province, north-west Cambodia, undergoing rehabilitation since the 2010s, and where numerous initiatives promoting sustainable agriculture and collective water management are taking place. We studied how farmers lately engaged into commercial farming dynamics thanks to recent irrigation development and associated initiatives, and how they considered sustainable farming models proposed.

Through qualitative field survey, we showed that the temporal precedence of irrigation schemes rehabilitation over initiatives related to institutional support and sustainability, combined with its dominance in terms of allocated resources has led to an unforeseen intensification of practices (e.g. synthetic fertilizer use increased from 50-100 kg.ha.cycle to 300-400 kg.ha.cycle). We argue that these dynamics « script » practices, bring specific industry infrastructures into being, and constrain the adoption of pathways toward sustainability, even though some farmers still attempt to pursue alternative trajectories.

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The paper argues that agricultural innovation systems privilege sustainable intensification, sidelining agroecological knowledge. It proposes redesigning epistemic infrastructures in projectified science, with reflexive societal readiness assessment as an method for enabling hermeneutic justice.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how contemporary agricultural innovation enacts different publics through the infrastructural arrangements that organize research, governance, and agricultural practices. This shows how infrastructures both distribute and delimit the hermeneutic resources through which actors’ experiences and claims become obscured. Using a multi sited ethnographic design, the paper examines three epistemic spaces that structure contemporary agricultural innovation: (1) a Horizon-Europe funded consortium, as an exemplar of “projectified” science where proposal templates, metrics, and regulatory requirements pre configure publics technology adopters; (2) policy and research regimes, where evaluation standards, funding architectures, training curriculums, and governance instruments selectively validate particular knowledge forms while marginalizing others; and (3) agroecology networks, which develops alternative epistemic infrastructures like festivals, seed networks, and communal learning spaces and cultivate publics grounded in experiential, socio ecological, and justice oriented ways of knowing. Across these sites, the paper traces how “publics” are made through infrastructural arrangements to enable certain concerns, experiences, and futures to become intelligible, and in doing so, shape the conditions in which ‘hermeneutic injustices’ are embedded. The study highlights how agricultural futures are shaped through frictions among these epistemic infrastructures and reveal the role of governance tools such as ‘Societal Readiness Assessment’, which both expose and delimit the possibilities for reflexive engagement.

Keywords- Epistemic infrastructure, Hermeneutic injustice, Agroecological knowledge, RRI, Societal readiness

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Paper short abstract

Whether agroecology and CRISPR can mix remains contested on epistemic and ontological grounds,. Yet little empirical evidence exists on practical feasibility. We address this gap by systematically mapping key infrastructural elements needed for CRISPR across 163 Neglected and Underutilised Species.

Paper long abstract

Whether and how agroecology and CRISPR could mix remains contested (Montenegro de Wit, 2022). While some proponents argue that CRISPR can support transitions to agroecology by enabling low-input, locally adapted crops, critics contend that it is incompatible with agroecology across ontological, epistemic, and ownership dimensions. Yet little research has examined whether such integration is feasible in practice.

We contribute to this debate by showing that research infrastructures for CRISPR fundamentally constrain its application in agroecology. Specifically, we investigate the availability of knowledge resources for Neglected and Underutilised Species (NUS), which play a central role in agroecological diversification.

Building on STS and infrastructure studies, we introduce the concept of knowledge resources—codified scientific resources such as genome assemblies, trait annotations, datasets, and laboratory protocols—as an analytical lens to understand how research infrastructures enable and constrain innovation.

We apply this framework to a comprehensive set of 163 NUS in the African context. Through desk research and expert workshops, we systematically identified and collected available knowledge resources for each crop to assess their availability. We find that although NUS are frequently highlighted as central to resilient and locally adapted farming systems, they often lack the genomic data and supporting knowledge resources required to make genome editing feasible. We thus show how CRISPR’s enabling infrastructures actively constrain its application in diverse crops.

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This paper explores the development of three alternative agriculture practices in the Netherlands through a multilevel sustainability transition perspective. By comparing these examples, we discuss possible leverage points for food system transformation toward sustainability.

Paper long abstract

The ongoing degradation of terrestrial ecosystems is increasingly acknowledged as an urgent problem. Because food systems affect land use and the quality of the environment, there is widespread recognition that conventional agriculture should become more sustainable to halt biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. The transformation toward alternative and more sustainable forms of agriculture is slow and faces many difficulties. For instance market structure, agricultural practices, governance structures and knowledge systems are hurdles. This paper explores the development of three alternative agriculture practices in the Netherlands through a multilevel sustainability transition perspective. By comparing these examples with conventional agriculture, we discuss possible leverage points for food system transformation toward sustainability.

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This paper examines how the logic of scaling in startup ecosystems constrains crop protection innovation in agriculture. Drawing on the case of phage-based biological control, it shows how scaling pressures transform simple solutions into complex products that are difficult to adopt by farmers.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how the institutionalized logic of scaling in the biotechnology startup ecosystem constrains the development of biological control solutions for crop protection. Biological control refers to the use of nature-based products to regulate plant pathogens and pests and includes microbial control strategies that rely on bacteria, fungi, or viruses. Despite their potential to reduce reliance on chemical pesticides, the adoption of biological control solutions remains limited in many agricultural systems. Drawing on the case of phage-based microbial control for crop protection, I argue that understanding the slow uptake of these solutions requires examining how the logic of scaling is enacted within the biotechnology startup ecosystem in which most of them are developed. I show that the logic of scaling creates tensions with the territorialized nature of many microbial control strategies, whose success is context-dependent and requires adaptation to specific pathogens, crops, and ecological conditions, thereby complicating their standardization and large-scale commercialization. In the case of phage crop protection, startups are encouraged to develop broad-spectrum cocktails combining multiple phage strains and requiring complex formulation processes. As a result, solutions that could otherwise remain relatively simple and inexpensive are transformed into technologically complex and costly products. By highlighting these dynamics, this paper contributes to discussions on how epistemic infrastructures in agricultural innovation systems constrain agroecological transitions and outlines directions for designing alternative innovation systems better aligned with the ecological specificity and practical uptake of biological control solutions in agriculture.

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Paper short abstract

The conflict between modern and alternative food systems, such as regen ag, can be usefully understood as a struggle for a different kind of infrastructure. I illustrate how regen ag practitioners and thinkers seek to a food system which reproduces itself through infrastructures of emplacement.

Paper long abstract

Modern food systems seek to override socio-ecological place-specificity; alternative food movements seek to preserve it. Drawing on Mario Blaser’s recent work (2025), I argue that this central conflict can be usefully understood as a struggle for a different kind of infrastructure.

Blaser proposes that modernity spreads through infrastructures of displacement – material and immaterial practices which override the specificity of places, and which produce extractivist relations. In contrast, infrastructures of emplacement are those which ground (a) people in specific places, and which produce relations of reciprocity. Indigenous ways of being offer examples of infrastructures of emplacement. However, how to build such practices of emplacement from within modern societies, for example within alternative food movements?

In this paper, I share early findings from an ongoing research project on cultivating emplacement in regenerative agriculture. Bottom-up regen ag initiatives seek to enable farmers (and the broader agri-food networks) to perceive and respond to place’s diversity and complexity so as to regenerate human and more-than-human life. This situates regen ag openly against modern industrial farming (including corporate regen ag), which seeks to pacify and silence socio-ecological place-specificity. As the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture writes (2026) “regeneration is not a prescription; it is a contextually intelligent response”. What does this mean in practice? I draw on ethnographic and qualitative research to illustrate how regen ag practitioners and thinkers seek to build individual and systemic practices of place-based response-ability: a food system which reproduces itself through infrastructures of emplacement.

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Paper short abstract

Social farming (SF) has the potential to stimulate the development of socio-environmentally regenerative agricultural infrastructures through human-non-human networks. Using Actor Network Theory and Italian SF case studies, this study shows determinants shaping SF-led agroecological transformation.

Paper long abstract

Social farming (SF) represents a novel approach to agriculture whereby social services, education, and health care are delivered through farm‑based activities for individuals experiencing life challenges. This paper positions SF at the intersection of agroecology and circular economy practices, showing that SF can generate socially regenerative outcomes - social inclusion, community resilience, food security - while reducing environmental impacts by promoting resource circulation across spaces of food production, processing, consumption, and waste management. Anchored in Actor‑Network Theory and Infrastructure Studies, this paper proposes a heuristic framework that conceptualizes social farms (SFs) as dynamic socio‑technical assemblages in which human actors (farmers, social‑care practitioners), non‑human actors (machinery, land, regulations), and organizations (welfare institutions) co‑create and negotiate complex material, immaterial, and commercial infrastructures.

Drawing on thirteen Italian SF case studies, it demonstrates how cross‑sectoral SF collaborations can repurpose, hybridize, or construct new care, market, regulatory, and knowledge infrastructures, fostering the development of agroecologically informed value chains. Doing so, the framework identifies key determinants shaping SF‑oriented agroecological development - infrastructural legacies, actor capacities, regulatory regimes, market conditions, resource interdependencies – and which reveal how SFs navigate infrastructural ambivalence: withdrawing from input‑intensive practices while negotiating compliance standards, redesigning farm architectures for accessibility and biodiversity, developing alternative marketing channels, and institutionalizing care arrangements.

The paper contends that scrutinizing the determinants underpinning the synergistic infrastructures upon which SFs depend is essential for understanding how the regenerative infrastructure of agriculture can be rebuilt. These insights inform scalable strategies and innovative policy interventions to advance SF across diverse contexts.

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Paper short abstract

Based on a qualitative survey of professionals involved in testing and demonstrating biological alernatives to pesticides, this article explores the role of knowledge infrastructures in hindering the development of these technologies in France.

Paper long abstract

In France, biological alternatives have been identified as one of the main solutions to reduce the consumption of pesticides. But their dissemination remains limited and encounters numerous obstacles. This paper investigates in depth one of these hurdles: experimental practices and infrastructures.

In France, many organisations are involved in various capacities in activities related to the testing and/or demonstration of plant protection methods: firms, research organisations, technical institutes, chambers of agriculture, cooperatives and trading companies, etc. Based on a qualitative survey of professionals involved in testing and demonstrating biocontrol solutions, this article explores the role of innovation infrastructure and professional testing practices in hindering the development of biocontrol in France.

The aim is to understand the circulation of biocontrol technologies across the spaces (experimental stations, farms, control plots) where their effectiveness is assessed, tested and demonstrated. We examine how the effectiveness of these methods is defined, qualified and measured as well as the infrastructural, methodological, technical and professional issues raised by the dissemination of these methods.

We examine how the effectiveness of biocontrol methods is presented by stakeholders involved in their promotion. This paper reflects and analyses the debates and conflicts of definition surrounding the effectiveness of these methods and their assessment. In doing so, we identify how knowledge infrastructure suited for chemical pesticides impede the dissemination of these alternative technologies.

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Paper short abstract

Why do bacteriophages remain marginal in agriculture? This paper examines how infrastructures built for chemical pesticides constrain the development of phage-based agroecological alternatives.

Paper long abstract

Can viruses replace certain chemical pesticides? While bacteriophages appear to be promising allies in the agroecological transition, their limited diffusion primarily reveals the inadequacy of current infrastructures, which were designed for a chemically based agricultural system.

The collective within which our interdisciplinary research is embedded (Milanovic et al. forthcoming) broadly focuses on the innovation represented by the use of bacteriophages from the perspective of agricultural phage therapy. What challenges must these phages undergo in order to reach their potential users? Beyond the regulatory and social acceptability issues most often emphasized, this presentation seeks to shed light on the role of infrastructures as obstacles to the development of this innovation.

This paper identifies several such obstacles. The first concerns scientific infrastructures—those through which data are produced—situated between field data and laboratory data, between “labscape” and “landscape” (Kohler, 2002). These include not only the data required to demonstrate phage efficacy, but also, as a second obstacle, the regulatory approval procedures required to obtain market authorization. Both the expected forms of evidence and the current regulatory procedures are calibrated for an intensive agricultural model that is poorly suited to agroecological practices based on the use of living microorganisms.

Finally, the infrastructures involved in the “scalability work” required to move toward the industrial production of phage-based biocontrol solutions must also be considered (production tools, distribution channels, and market structuring).

Developing a genuine “phage sector” therefore requires rethinking the infrastructures that currently act as barriers and implementing those that can support its development.

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Paper short abstract

In the context of an unfolding effort to upcycle vegetable-processing waste using fermentation, this paper explores what makes some arrangements of a (food) system particularly resistant to change, despite desired intervention. It explores efforts by diverse actors to tinker with this arrangement.

Paper long abstract

This paper disentangles what makes some arrangements of a (food) system particularly resistant to change, in the context of an unfolding effort by Wageningen University and Dutch vegetable-processing companies to “valorize” processing waste by fermenting it into food products. Drawing on actor-network theory and speculations on how network stability is manufactured (Law, 2009), we aim to identify the (material, discursive) structures that have stabilized a food system in which waste is allowed to systemically emerge, despite moral objections to wastefulness. Based on interviews with, and participant observation among, two vegetable-processing companies and their networks, our analysis is organized along three structuring factors: specifications (or “specs”) in vegetable supply-chains, the “business case” trope, and the attempted enrollment of new actors in pursuit of systemic rearrangement. We argue that by excessively demanding (quantified) cosmetic or convenience features in natural produce from the processor, their clientele's specifications generate unnecessary waste, especially when specifications are met with the real limitations of automated processing technologies. However, we observe that specifications also discursively order (Law, 2009) and therefore stabilize the diverse supply-chain networks that processing companies are embedded in. Further, we investigate how processors' verbalized concern with their "business case", and the calculative practices behind it (a model adapted from other industries), structures decisions about food waste while foreclosing many alternatives. Finally, we discuss whether enrolling new actors (e.g. fermentative microbes, and the scientists that specialize in them) offers a fraught industry a way to generate and structurally stabilize a more circular system arrangement.