LE CONSEIL AGRICOLE AU CARREFOUR DU DEVELOPPEMENT SECTORIEL ET DU DEVELOPPEMENT TERRITORIAL :ACCOMPAGNER L'ACTIVITE AGRICOLE EN SITUATIONE

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5International audienceThis paper provides a framework to analyse the undergoing changes in agricultural and rural development. As a result of these changes, agricultural extension is faced with the challenge of standing at the crossroads between sector development and territorial development, which is the issue analysed here. This paper contributes to a new conceptualization of agricultural activity, reaching beyond its technical, economic, and productive aspects so as to include cultural and political factors, as well as the spatial and time dimensions related to local and daily life activities. This leads to the establishment of a new approach of agricultural changes and their accompaniment, and of public policy guidelines, which places collective actions, together with their situated dimension, purposes, and knowledge, at the heart of the analysis. The subsequent conceptual framework has being tested in a number of French studies, which first results, reported in Part 2, can be synthesized as three major trends: territorial factors are progressively being integrated in agricultural advice, including in traditional farming sectors; the public and the objects of agricultural extension are diversifying; extension agents need to cooperate with the development agents of non-agricultural sector. All in all, the skills of the extension agents, and their ability to facilitate collective actions, are the most sensitive issues brought about by these new challenges