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Book of Abstracts First Legume Society Conference 2013: A Legume Odyssey Novi Sad, Serbia, 9-11 May 2013
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Agricultural innovative practices and impacts of the supply chain: An ex-ante study of the
logistics of agricultural cooperatives to estimate the acceptability of durum wheat-grain
legumes intercrops
Laurent Bedoussac 1,2 , Marie-Benoit Magrini 2,3 , Pierre Triboulet 2,3
1 ENFA, Castanet-Tolosan, France
2 INRA, UMR1248 AGIR, Castanet-Tolosan, France
3 Université Toulouse, INPT, UMR AGIR, Toulouse, France
Diffusion of innovative agricultural practices like intercropping (growing simultaneously two or
more species in a same field) raises the question of their acceptability within the supply chain.
Intercrops like durum wheat-grain legumes have shown potential advantages for global yield,
grain quality and pests reduction and could facilitate reductions in nitrogen supply and pesticide
use. However, adoption of these new practices by farmers is linked to the logistics of agricultural
cooperatives (abilities to the collection, grading and marketing of the two species). The aim of
this work is to assess ex-ante the characteristics of the logistics of agricultural cooperatives likely
to promote the adoption of new practices such as intercropping. It is based on a survey carried
out in 2010 on the logistics of agricultural cooperatives in the Midi-Pyrenees region (SW France).
The assumption is that the actors of the so-called "conventional" supply chains could accept such
new practices according to their leeway to change their system. This study reveals a set of criteria
such as transport, storage, grading or contracts and commercialisation which determine whether
or not they could be compatible with these new practices. The cooperatives indicating that their
logistics is a priori compatible are those oriented towards quality management. These cooperatives
present a specific set of skills facilitating adaptation to a greater diversity of crops, allowing us to
qualify their logistical organization as more resilient. The main obstacle to the diffusion of durum
wheat-grain legumes intercrops within the “conventional” supply-chains remains the problem of
sorting seeds.
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