Exchanging knowledge to improve organic arable farming: an evaluation of knowledge exchange tools with farmer groups across Europe

Abstract

Organic farming is knowledge intensive. To support farmers in improve yields and organic agriculture systems, there is a need to improve how knowledge is shared. There is an established culture of sharing ideas, successes and failures in farming. The internet and information technologies open-up new opportunities for knowledge exchange involving farmers, researchers, advisors and other practitioners. The OK-Net Arable brought together practitioners from regional Farmer Innovation Groups across Europe in a multi-actor project to explore how online knowledge exchange could be improved. Feedback from the groups was obtained for 36 'tools', defined as end-user materials, such as technical guides, videos on websites informing about practices in organic agriculture. The groups also selected one practice to test on farms, sharing their experiences with others through workshops, exchange visits and through videos. Farmers valued the same key elements in face-to-face exchanges (workshops and visits) as in online materials. These were the opportunity for visual observation, deeper understanding of the context in which a practice was being tried and details about what worked and what did not work. Videos, decision support tools and social media can provide useful mechanisms for taking knowledge exchange online, if farmers' experiences and practical implication are shared, and more visual information about the context, economics, successes and failures is provided. Online platforms and forums should not be expected to replace but rather to complement face to face knowledge exchange in improving organic farming.

A Digital Advisor Twin for Crop Nitrogen Management

“…In this way, farmers benefit from the digital 'social capital' [59], i.e., knowledge of the digital expert network, cf. [55,60,61].…”

Knowledge Networks in Organic Fruit Production across Europe: A Survey Study

“…Digital resources can become a key tool to overcome the language barrier [49]. Online multilingual platforms, such as the Organic Farm Knowledge platform (https://organic-farmknowledge.org/, accessed on 28 December 2021), can provide access to high-quality and trusted digital learning resources on organic agriculture to farmers from different countries [50]. Exploiting internet-based translation services (e.g., Google Translator or DeepL) can also help, though the technical vocabulary can be more difficult to be correctly translated automatically.…”

The Relevance of Videos as a Practical Tool for Communication and Dissemination in Horizon2020 Thematic Networks

“…On the other hand, short videos contain less information. The study of Bliss et al [22] highlighted that short videos may fail to provide enough detail to encourage practical application. Furthermore, due to their relatively fast-paced nature, the details may not be grasped [40].…”

“…More generally, even though videos are successful tools to exchange knowledge, it remains fundamental to combine them with more "traditional" ways of knowledge exchange (e.g., physical meetings). Videos should never be used as an exclusive tool, and the combination of both ways of exchanging knowledge is the most likely way to encourage farmers to translate knowledge into action [22]. TNs are already successfully promoting face-to-face exchange moments.…”

“…In recent years, many studies regarding the importance of using videos for knowledge exchange with farmers were performed both inside and outside Europe [14,21,22]. For example, Van Campenhout et al (2021) found that, after watching videos related to their practice, maize farmers applied the suggested recommendation in the field [23].…”