Santé et qualification des produits. Coopération de scientifiques et d'agriculteurs autour de la nutrition méditerrané enne

Abstract

"Nutrition Méditerranéenne en Provence" is an umbrella brand and a qualification process based on three arguments: origin, preservation of the environment and preventive nutrition. The paper addresses the questions raised by the introduction of the preventive claim. How can a valorization process be sustainably developed with scientific knowledge on the relations between health and nutrition derived from different disciplinary fields and moreover highly unstable? What tensions does this argument generate when confronted with the other two? How can a wide variety of foods ranging from wine, olive oil, fruits and vegetables to cheese, meat and even eggs be valorized when nutrition data about some of them seem to be far from beneficial to health? We show that codification of these different arguments relies on the producers' practical knowledge, on scientist knowledge and on the central role of the technicians who develop the project. These intermediary actors have succeeded in bringing together scientists who initially were only remotely concerned with issues of farm produce quality and farmers who have little interest in the scientific aspects of nutrition. But will the project interest consumers, whose presence in such a project remains rather ambiguous? © NSS Dialogues, EDP Sciences 2006.