Acting as a Change Agent in Supporting Sustainable Agriculture: How to Cope with New Professional Situations?

Abstract

How do change agents deal with the diversity of farmers' attitudes towards the future of agriculture? How do they themselves cope with change and understand their role as change agents? We chose a comprehensive, action-training approach to answer such questions and worked with agents belonging to two different extension networks. The agents acknowledged their historically built professional models and discussed their professional situations in relation to the need to develop new skills and to address new audiences. Some dimensions of these situations were pointed out as crucial in the change process: (1) the agent's position among farmers and those who act to change farming practices at local level; (2) the tension between the agent's engagement in promoting more environmentally-friendly practices, and the role that managers and farmers assign to the agent; and (3) the way of combining scientific and technical knowledge with farmers' own knowledge. Our work also highlighted the diversity of the agents' points of view on change at farm level (discontinuity versus continuity) and the way to handle it: respectively by making the discontinuity visible and manageable at farm level, or by supporting a step-by-step management of change at cropping-system level. The added value has been to develop a method which enables advisers to learn together from their professional situations, and thus to show the need to investigate how the agent's subjectivity is a key driver of a change intervention.

Generating transformative agency among horticultural producers: An activity-theoretical approach to transforming Integrated Pest Management

“…Today's advisors are increasingly becoming facilitators who support farmers' transformative agency towards agricultural innovation instead of merely disseminating information and telling farmers what to do in regard to operational-tactical issues (Dogliotti et al, 2013;Ingram, 2008;Kilelu et al, 2014). Such a change in the advisor's role require new tools, new ways of knowing and new ways of relating, through knowledge exchange encounters with clients (Cerf et al, 2011;Ingram, 2008).…”

Beyond fragmentation and disconnect: Networks for knowledge exchange in the English land management advisory system

“…They must creatively apply the tools of their trade and develop new production routines" (Wolf, 2008: 205). In the case of advisory professions, such new production routines might include obtaining knowledge to offer adequate advisory services for the different types of queries clients have and developing new advisory services which meet the emerging needs of clients due to changing circumstances (Albaladejo et al, 2007;Cerf et al, 2011). There is a parallel here with knowledge intensive business service firms (KIBS), which have been defined as private companies or organisations relying heavily on professional knowledge (i.e.…”

“…In some places, such brokers are already operational (Klerkx and Leeuwis, 2008;Klerkx and Jansen, 2010). However, as regards the challenge for the advisors to obtain the knowledge to offer adequate advisory services, there has been far less attention to how the different advisory professions within the land management advisory system might do this themselves (notable exceptions include Albaladejo et al, 2007;Höckert et al, 2010;Cerf et al, 2011, who studied identity development, learning and collaboration of advisors). Indeed, it has been indicated that more research is needed (Ingram and Morris, 2007).…”

AgroEcological Transitions : changes and breakthroughs in the making

“…The farmers' board and the managers of the Chamber of Agriculture proposed to hire a new advisor (B.O) to provide advice to the farmers who were contracted to reduce the use of inputs; the intermediary in this case. This case study is based on a longitudinal approach of tracking advisors as practitioners of change (Maxime et al, 2002;Cerf et al, 2011) and explains the specific role of the B.O. in networking various activity systems at both local and national levels in order to support the search and development of on-farm pathways towards sustainability.…”