The complex relationships between non-food agriculture and the sustainable bioeconomy: The French case

The article studies the diversity of models of sustainable bioeconomy by focusing on the productive strategies of the farmers who engage in it. To account for this diversity, we use the framework of analysis of Beckert's socioeconomics of capitalism in terms of compromises between four institutionalised economic processes: commodification, competition, innovation, and financing. We complete it by a fifth institutionalised process: the social relationship to the environment. We apply this framework analysis to the results obtained through a qualitative survey of 85 actors in the Grand Est region (France) involved in the bioeconomy between 2017 and 2021. We identify four models for the agricultural non-food bioeconomy that fit into various value chains and which approach sustainability issues differently.