Re-structuration de la gouvernance du marché de fleurs coupées en France et son impact sur les producteurs dans les pays en développement

International audienceThe objective of the paper is to examine how retailers play a powerful role in shaping the governance in cut flower trade in France. Global Value Chain analysis has been used to explain why a distribution system originally based on spot markets has been replaced by tightly integrated supply chains. It allowed an exploration of the consequences of these changes on the structure of the value chain and the inclusion and exclusion of different agents in the chain. Fieldwork were carried out between 2007 and 2008 in France and in Holland with 22 chain participants including supermarkets, franchise florists, traditional florists, importers, wholesalers, institutions and freelance consultants. Traditional florists have always been the main retail channel for cut flowers in France. However, since 1990`s share of traditional florists has been reduced sharply by entry of new channels and therefore this market became much more consolidated. In the 1990`s supermarkets began to sale cut flower and rapidly they was accounted 15% of the market. More recently, the consolidation of market have been reinforced by the emerging of franchises florist chains. French franchises and supermarkets have been bought directly in developing countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Colombia. Each retailer has developed its own value chain control system. The retailer-importer relationship has been moved towards the relational pattern, whereas the importer-producer relationship displayed the characteristics of a captive linkage. These importers acquired new functions, moving beyond a `trading' role toward a more active position in the management of the value chain. They have assumed responsibility for developing new sources of supply, supporting developing-country producers and monitoring their performance. The product and process parameters changed also the roles of producers, forcing them to acquire new technical knowledge of production as well as on close ties with researchers, breeding companies, and importers. Demands for capital and technical capacity had led to the exclusion of many small producers that were unable to meet requirements. This exclusion was initially evident in the France, but then it also has reached all the major African cut flower exporting countries such as Kenya and Uganda. Production has moved away from small growers to large farms, many of which are owned by the Dutch importers. The small producers that have remained in the value chain have been organized into grower organizations with a high degree of control by the importers