Disentangling critical success factors and principles of on-farm agricultural demonstration events

Abstract

Purpose: The paper identifies, outlines, and categorises establishment and operational factors that contribute to successful agricultural onfarm demonstration. Design/Methodology/approach: The paper is based on a literature review on demonstration activities and meta-analysis of 24 original case study reports from 12 European countries. Findings: Based on a combination of deductive and inductive analysis, the success determinants are classified into nine critical success factors deemed important in designing an on-farm demonstration event (the 'Nine Ps'): Purpose, Problem, Place, Personnel, Positioning, Programme, Process, Practicalities, Post-event engagement. Each factor ('what') is framed in terms of success principles to provide a guide to its enactment ('how'). Practical implications: The results of the analysis can serve as a practical decision-support tool for organisers and evaluators of on-farm demonstration events. Theoretical implications: The paper broadens the perspective on the character, interlinkages, and relative importance of the factors underlying demonstration and their successful application within the agricultural knowledge and innovation system. Originality/Value: The paper addresses the deficit of comprehensive empirical studies investigating on-farm demonstrations by offering a rich research-based analysis of the factors and principles underlying their successful implementation.

Power to the facilitated agricultural dialogue: an analysis of on-farm demonstrations as transformative learning spaces

“…Both projects focused on farmer-to-farmer learning during European agricultural demonstrations and the creation of on-line guiding resources, including an inventory of demonstration activities in Europe. The results of these linked projects strongly support the crucial role of a skilled facilitator (Adamsone-Fiskovica et al 2021;Marchand et al 2021) and therefore adds to the appreciation of the contributions facilitators and other related types of network brokers can make within the AKIS (Klerkx and Leeuwis 2009).…”

“…Many other studies on agricultural extension activities report facilitation as a key success factor (e.g. Kelly, Bennett, and Starasts 2017;Crawford et al 2007;Cristóvão et al 2009), as also two other studies in this issue of Adamsone-Fiskovica et al (2021) on disentangling critical success factors of OFDs and of Marchand et al (2021) on the role of structural characteristics of OFDs.…”

A theoretical framework for tracking farmers’ innovations to support farming system design

“…In line with earlier research (e.g. farmers as advisors and demonstrators, Adamsone-Fiskovica et al 2021;Klerkx 2020; support for inquiry in transitions, Slimi et al 2021), the second pathway would involve exploring whether and how farmers track innovations on other farms, and the role of R&D actors in these processes. A third avenue would be the investigation of whether and how the farmer innovation tracking processes we studied could be tailored to other types of innovations within and beyond the farming sector (how to track forms of organization, breeding systems, public policies, etc.…”

“…informing users on the robustness of the hypotheses formulated by farmers), and (iii) to investigate how such narratives are used by farmers to implement change, or by agricultural advisors to support such change (as well as their articulation with demonstrations, e.g. Adamsone-Fiskovica et al 2021).…”

Knowledge production and communication in on-farm demonstrations: putting farmer participatory research and extension into practice

“…While there are few academic studies focusing on on-farm trials and demonstrations as sites of co-production of knowledge (Henke 2000), more extensive attention is devoted to the management of these on-farm arrangements (Adamsone-Fiskovica et al 2021). This agricultural extension literature generally acknowledges the importance of generating and providing need-and demand-based knowledge for farmers (Haug 1999), ensuring a collaborative mode of farmer participation (Takoutsing et al 2014), and promoting these practices for facilitating not only knowledge exchange between advisors and practitioners but also peer-to-peer learning (Sutherland and Marchand 2021).…”