Conditions and means of computerised data management for the implementation of sustainable agriculture: strategic exploration using the "audit patrimonial" method.

Abstract

French new regulations about integrated farming are supposed to set a new standard for French farmers' agricultural practices, which will have to be recorded as evidence of the respect of the national requirements. However, various actors are already concerned in farmers' agricultural practices: authorities, development organisations, account departments, food-industry actors This organisation of the agricultural world, together with the development of computer science and technology has led to a growing demand of data from the farmers. As a consequence, the farmer cannot structure the agricultural practices data in a stated goal, which is described by the 'audit patrimonial' method as a systemic lack of appropriation ("patrimonialisation" in the sense of the "audit patrimonial" method) of the farmer's data. What is more, the way for different organizations (including farms) to record the information is combined paper and computer medium. All these media communicate unequally between the actors. A lot of private firms, both usual ones in agriculture and emergent ones, offer a new kind of software to farmers and partners. Processing practices data become a stake for all the actors, so does consulting loaning to farmers and their partners. This new market is mainly created by traceability and environmental regulations demands, but also by the opportunities new technologies of information and communication, particularly GPS and geographic equipment. As a result, the relations between actors and their prerogatives are being upset. No software is able to manage all the information specified in the integrated farming base so far, but they all collectively do. The farmer is eager to save data acquisition, hence a growing need for the software to communicate one to another with the help of a standard. Data property issue needs to be raised by the authorities, so does the issue of the statute of data base managers, as data bases are going to centralise agricultural practices data. Are several databases communicating thanks to the Internet a better guarantee of property rights? The statements developed through the article throw a new light on what could be the aim of integrated farming: together with being the first step for the farmer to manage environment, being also the way to simplify data acquisition for farmers.