Abstract
Owing to public support, renewable energies are playing an ever-increasing role in european energy systems, most notably Biogas which is connected to another major industry: agriculture. The aim of this article is to focus on the socio-economic transformations in the agricultural industry, as a result of the developement of renewables energies and to understand which party takes advantages of theses changes and which party could suffer as a result of them. This study presents the theoretical background, methodology and preliminary results of research conducted on the biogas industry in France and forms a multi-disciplinary approach linking geography and sociology. In particular, it, is based on a territorialized approach to social structuring. In this instance, the methodological framework is depicted in a quantitative survey. Primarily, results showed that biogas farmers are a specific population with higher resources and share key features with each other. Further data exploration could sharpen theses results through differenciation of subpopulations within our survey and complementary field research.