• A Doctoral Student Blog

    Théo Lenormand, Second year PhD student at the CCRI Lab part of the University of Gloucestershire - Working on Future Farming Evolution in Wales - AgPolicy, Farming sciences, Geography and Agro-Economy

  • Blog Posts

    These are my views and don't reflect the views from my sponsors, mentors or colleagues.

  • Delivering from the research?

    Work in progress 2021-2022. A summary of the latest outputs from the research that can impact policy and the debate

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    Conference and paper presentations (link to full text)

    • March 2021 - Lenormand, T., Dwyer, J. and Devienne, S. (2021) ‘Impact of agricultural policy (1992-2020) on a Welsh lowland landscape (UK): A widening gap between farms under the future Welsh Policies?’, Annual Conference of The Agricultural Economics Society 2021. DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.312069
    • December 2021 - Lenormand, T., Dwyer, J. and Devienne, S. (2021) ‘Liberalized land market and gradual subsidy decoupling; competition between farms and challenge for the agro-ecological transition. A case study in different agricultural regions of Wales’, 15th JRSS - Research Days in Social Sciences, Toulouse, 09/12/2021. Link
    • April 2022, Lenormand, T., Dwyer, J., and Devienne, S. (2022), for the AES conference at Leuven: Different shades of green? Differentiation of hill farming in North-Wales, polarisation of land use intensity and productions at a local scale, what will be the impact of the future Welsh Agricultural policy? Link
    • June 2022, Lenormand T., Morse, A. (2022), ‘Sustaining the valuable North Wales Socio-Ecological Production Landscapes through locally relevant policy and practice’. OECD, New Futures for Satoyama - innovation in policy and practice to sustain cultural landscapes Conference 2022. Forthcoming as a paper. Link
  • Work in progress 2021 - A glimpse at the future

    Featuring the latest baseline studies that I did and the analysis of future impacting policies and trade deals for farms

  • About the researcher

    Théo Lenormand

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    A life before the PhD

    Fresh out of Brittany

    As an inhabitant from Brittany, Wales and the UK have always been only hours away and farming is one of the connecting forces between the two shores of the Channel. Farming is prominent in Brittany and is considered as an industry (as it is in Wales); this and my combined interest in life sciences and human sciences triggered me to try to study at AgroParisTech. After 2 years of post-secondary intensive coursework (Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geology and Geography) in Paris at the institute I specialised in Agronomy, Economics, Agricultural Development and Agricultural Policy.

    I enjoyed my 4 years at AgroParisTech where I graduated with a Master’s degree as I had a variety of experiences (partly abroad) that helped me understand how varied farming was, how the history of an area shaped out different patterns and farming types and relations with their surroundings: for example, the French revolution that still explains a lot of differences between farming in France and in the UK.

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    A focus on agri-food

    I focused on temperate and Western Europe by doing some extensive classwork in Normandy and in Cantal on the CAP and most lately in the UK. Farming types I studied range from dairy farming, cattle production to wine making or crops. I studied different agricultural policy and agricultural history and economics in the wider world, for example the USA and some developing countries like the Burundi.

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    International Experience

    A gap year to gain some depth in my understanding of farming and food

    I love travelling though I now restrain myself to limit my greenhouses gases emissions. I learned lots from my extensive stays abroad during a research assistant position in Australia and an exchange semester in Argentina where I was immersed into the country and I really had the opportunity to carve out my own reflection on what I saw.

     

    Those two experiences gave me a unique opportunity to travel and understand each country, its culture, its polocies and its agriculture... I shall do a post about it one day!

     

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    A 6 month long welsh experience

    South Pembrokeshire an diagnosis of an agrarian situation

    In 2019 as part of my master's degreeI spent 6 month in Wales studying a small agricultural area, South Pembrokeshire through the scope of the agrarian diagnosis. A unique immersion experience with a lot of fieldwork and 90 interviews with farmers and stakeholders to understand the farming landscape and modelize it.

    The time I spent immersed in the welsh culture is very key to connecting to what people experience. But on the other side of the coin an outsider to the communities that I will meet might prove a real plus, offering a different point of view, potentially valuable for the next rural policies to be deployed in Wales. I feel that this system-based approach doesn't exist at the farming, environment and rural communities scale today.

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    And now a PhD ?

    I felt that to achieve the drive towards a more sustainable agriculture, agricultural policy and economics from a system based approach are tools that can play a greater role. This transition is for me not only about environment but also about economy, rural societies and nutrition aspects.

    Will agro-environmental schemes and payments be good enough to help us out of the current crisis?

    My recent position as a research assitant in the CCRI makes me wonder how far they can stretch and how helpful they are.

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    Studying Farm Evolution in Wales

    My research is still focusing on farm evolution but this time in the light of the ongoing changes to the policy and economic landscape and at a country wise scale - Wales.


    To study this subject, I am implementing the French method I am familiar with; called “Agrarian Diagnosis” from the 'comparative agriculture field', which is a fieldwork-based approach to farming research.

     

  • Studying Post-Brexit farm evolution in Wales

    Wales farming evolution and post-Brexit implications: How can future policy sustain farming multifunctionality in rural communities in an uncertain context?

     

    To study this subject, I am using a French method called “Agrarian Diagnosis”, which is a fieldwork-based approach to farming research. Conducting this sort of work in several focus areas across Wales will help develop a better understanding of farming evolution and how they may be affected by different factors, for example how farms will fare after Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. This will help inform new agricultural policy, at a time when Wales is gaining more independence in its agricultural policy design. It is therefore very important to hear the experiences and views of farmers in Wales.

     

    It means closely studying selected focus areas through fieldwork, to understand how and why agriculture has evolved through time (e.g., impacts of the landscape, policy, economy…). Because farming is a complex subject, the goal is to fully appreciate how the impacts of such factors vary between different areas and farm types.

     

  • The Agrarian Diagnosis - constructing a modelized farm landscape

    Understanding what options have been and are open to farmers in the small agricultural areaA Qualitative approach to constructing a farm landscape.

    1

    Understand the environment of the area

     

    It also entails understanding the landscape and the way that it is and has been used, also its geology, soil, climate, etc. This will help to characterize all the different landscape types found within a small and coherent agricultural area.

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    Constructing a logbook of farm evolutions

    This step isconducted by interviewing farmers and retired farmers - as many as possible - to get a good understanding of who farmed the land in the past and who in the present, in the selected focus area.

     

    From these interviews, I will sketch all the farm evolution patterns in the landscape. In other words, I will try to see how all the farms in the study area that were present in the 1950s and ‘60s evolved (whether they stopped/ went into dairying/ grew / etc...). This creates a log of past evolutions.

     
    3

    Modelling the farms landscape in their environment

    During a second round of interviews, I then focus on existing farming systems: going in-depth into how farms function, the livestock and crop management, as well as the business structure.

     

    The modelling of the farmed landscape resulting from all these interviews generates a moving picture of farming through time, including the drivers that impacted it and why, all linked to the specific character of the area.

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    How to upscale the findings and the modelized environment

    This very fine grained understanding of the agricultural systems in small focus areas then allows one to scale up or compare it to others, giving valuable insights into how farming differs in different places, and the possible responses to future changes.

  • We have a baseline but how to study the evolution ?

    Using this detailled Baseline Farming Landscape for prospective evolution to refine policy tools

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    Construct Scenarios for prospective evolutions

    In terms of economics, food prices but as well imports and exports rules, policy landscape (particularly agrifood policy).


    With expert and by reviewing the literature and history.

     

    2

    Run the scenarios on the modelized farming landscape

    Sensitivity tests for different economic scenarios and planned policies will give results at local, regional scale and at farm scale, concerning the evolution of farms and future farming scheme uptake.

     

    3

    From this simulation extract some valuable information

    A mapping of the uptake of the future farming scheme and its implications for viable farm businesses.

     

    What farm evolution is likely to happen as a result of the economic results, farming system compatibility, past evolutions, social structure... 

     

    This at differents scales

     

     

    4

    Make the most of this evidence to reflect on how to alter policy tools

    Exploring proposals for future agricultural policies with a round of voluntary workshops in communities across Rural Wales.

  • Contact Me

    If you want more information, If you want to collaborate, if you want to clarify something...

    theolenormand@glos.connect.ac.uk
    Email
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