Design workshop with farmers as a promising tool to support the introduction of diversifying crops within a territory: the case of camelina in northern France to supply a local biorefinery

Abstract

The development of local diversification value-chains requires the design and implementation of cropping systems adapted to a diversity of farms and the management of crops for which very little knowledge is available. In this article, using the example of camelina in northern France to supply a local oilseed biorefinery, we illustrate how (i) the realisation of a design workshop based on the formalization and sharing of local knowledge produced by a multi-stakeholder participatory approach, and (ii) the analysis, formalization and sharing of the outputs of this design workshop, are useful for supporting the introduction of a new species in a territory. In total, each of the nine farmers attending the workshop designed one (or two) proposal(s) to include and manage camelina adapted to their own situation. The precise description of these proposals and the explanation of the technical choices, the identification of the factors explaining the diversity of the proposals designed, as well as the inventory of the functions expected of the crop by the farmers, which are presented in this paper, constitute a set of elements that could also be used to support other farmers in the area who would like to introduce this new species into their cropping system.