Synergy between innovation niches and transdisciplinarity: the case of coffee producer families and their organizations (Southeastern Mexico)

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The dominant regime in coffee growing regions has been molded by multilateral entities' policies together with transnational food corporations and national governing bodies, which in turn are driven by unsustainable production chains fed by unorganized farmers. This regime has managed to maintain low-priced commodities, thus leaving in poverty 75% of the rural population in coffee growing regions in Chiapas, Mexico. As a result, innovation "niches" have been formed-such as fair trade initiatives launched by Coordinadora Mexicana de Pequeños Productores de Comercio Justo (CMCJ, Mexican Coordinator of Fair Trade Small-Scale Farmers)-which focus on coffee growing families searching for better prices in coffee and looking to improve their quality of life. However, most often, the academic sector has implemented scientific policies that favor disciplinary research in relation to enterprises within the "regime." This situation has led to the scarce development of capacities to face complex socio-environmental problems that haunt farmer families within innovation "niches," where multidisciplinary, reliable, and socially sturdy knowledge is needed.In this regard, the present study aims to identify key elements to build this type of knowledge by means of analyzing two critical case studies, namely, the collaboration between the Research Group on Coffee-Producer Regions of ECOSUR (GIEZCA) and Fair Trade on one side, and the collaboration of GIEZCA with the Institute of Coffee of Chiapas (INCAFECH) on the other. Our results show that in the latter case study, the process of knowledge generation was of the type "mode one" or academic science which tends to be disciplinary. In contrast, results of the former case study reveal that niche integration, multidisciplinary research groups and the "quadruple helix"-in an ongoing social learning process enlivening the territory-are key components to help these farmers cope with coffee crises due to volatile prices and agricultural pests. eng