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Thesis abstract :

 In view of the increasingly urgent need for innovation in agriculture, it is necessary to develop approaches to co-design Innovative Cropping Systems (ICS) that are easy to appropriate for farmers and that are adapted to local conditions of access to resources. To do so, we propose an original combination of different methods such as on-farm innovation tracking, Participatory Prototyping Trials (PPTs), design and evaluation workshops, and farmers’ step-by-step design. The study was conducted with 73 producers belonging to two farmers’ communities in the cotton production zone of Burkina Faso.

We show that: (i)Some technical options implemented by innovative farmers in the area anticipate different drivers of change of the study area, and other farmers show interest for these innovative cropping systems; (ii) A wide range of farmers can be involved by debating various innovative practices demonstrated in the PPTs, those innovations are developed taking farmers’ evaluation and access to resources into account; (iii) By experimenting on their farms, farmers have adapted these ICSs to their own situations and enter into a step-by-step design process of innovative cropping systems, a process that is fueled by exchanges among peers and with agronomists.