La dynamique d'adoption de l'agriculture de conservation à l'échelle des exploitations agricoles. Cas du Moyen Ouest de Madagascar

Conservation agriculture (CA) is an agroecological innovation that entails minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotations and/or associations (FAO 2017). It has been promoted in sub-Saharan Africa to address soil degradation and to support the transition toward a sustainable agriculture. Whereas, CA adoption rate is low in sub-Saharan Africa. This study proposes to use the « Sustainable Rural Livelihood » (SRL) framework to analyse the transition toward agroecology in sub-Saharan Africa. The research question is: what are motivations and barriers that shape the current dynamics of CA adoption at farm level? A qualitative data caollection has thus been carried out in 2017 in Western Madagascar. Empirical insights confirm that farmers in the study area are facing soil degradation. Some farmers adopt CA and have initially been motivated by the perspective to improve the agricultural production, while other are not in an adoption dynamic. Low endowment of farmers' livelihood assets hindered this adoption and then favoured the disadoption of the technique. However, an up return to CA practices after a phase of disadoption and a discontinued adoption behaviour occurred as an unexpected effect because the existence of such behaviour has not yet been empirically demonstrated in the literature. This result illustrated the innovation and the adaptive capacities of farmers. Renewing the acompanying approach of farmers to facilitate the transition toward CA, encouraging the scientific multidisciplinary in the analysis of the innovation process and further investigations about the discontinuance of the practice of CA are identified as topics of research to explore.