The article aims to show the social space that emerges from the accounts of Vendée farmers practicing conservation agriculture, when they talk about good agricultural practices to be implemented as part of their ‘concern for the soil’. This work is based on collective interviews conducted with farmers and analysed through Greimas’ narrative semiotics. It highlights both a narrative on the preservation and development of ‘the life of the soil’, and a counter-narrative that marks their opposition to a non-agricultural use of agricultural land. In the narrative, the three types of tests in Greimas’ theoretical framework bring out elements that relate to the acquisition of the knowledge necessary for individuals, their practical mastery and the social recognition of their activity. The counter-narrative consists in completing, in a defensive posture, a dominant narrative, which transpires in parallel from their remarks, and in showing the ambivalence of the role of the actors, whether urban or agricultural, involved in a non-agricultural use of the land. Having placed particular emphasis on the roles of the allies and opposing actors, the analytical framework used proved to be particularly effective in bringing out certain characteristics of these roles. Indeed, within the same type of actors we notice both a diversity of roles (e.g. ally or opponent) and a dynamics of role evolution over time. Besides, the ambivalence of roles that may sometimes be assumed by the same actor can be underlined, an ambivalence arising from the contrasting consequences of an action or the contradiction between actions. In conclusion, one may ask to what extent the plurality, dynamics and ambivalence of the roles we identified are not an integral component of the narratives on environmental issues, which involve a range of actors in diverse situations.