Keeping the Actors in the Organic System Learning: The Role of Organic Farmers’ Experiments

Abstract

<p>The creative process that leads to farmers’ innovations is rarely studied or described precisely in agricultural sciences. For academic scientists, obvious limitations of farmers’ experiments are e.g. precision, reliability, robustness, accuracy, validity or the correct analysis of cause and effect. Nevertheless, we propose that ‘farmers’ experiments’ underpin innovations that keep organic farming locally tuned for sustainability and adaptable to changing economic, social and ecological conditions. We first researched the structure and role of farmers’ experiments by conducting semi-structured interviews of 47 organic farmers in Austria and 72 organic/agroecology farmers in Cuba in 2007 and 2008. Seventysix more structured interviews explored the topics and methods used by Austrian farmers that were ‘trying something’. Farmers engaged in activities that can be labelled as farmers experiments because these activities include considerable planning, manipulating variables, monitoring effects and communicating results. In Austria and Cuba 487 and 370 individual topics, respectively, were mentioned for experimenting by the respondents. These included topics like the introduction of new species or varieties, testing various ways of commercialization or the testing of alternative remedies. Two thirds (Austria) and one third (Cuba) of the farmers who experimented had an explicit mental or written plan before starting. In both countries, the majority of the farmers stated that they set up their experiments first on a small scale and expanded them if the outcome of the experiments was satisfactory. Repetitions were done by running experiments in subsequent years and the majority of the farmers monitored the experiments regularly. In both countries, many experiments were not discrete actions but nested in time and space. For further research on learning and innovation in organic farming we propose an explicit appreciation of farmers’ experiments, encouraging further in-depth research on the details of the farmers’ experimental process and encouraging the inclusion of farmers’ experiments in strategies for innovation in organic and non organic farming. Strategic research and innovation agendas for organic farming would benefit from including organic farmers as co-researchers in all steps of the research process in order to encourage co-learning between academic scientists and organic farmers.</p>

Farmers’ Own Research: Organic Farmers’ Experiments in Austria and Implications for Agricultural Innovation Systems

“…Beyond these similarities, the particularity and significance of farmers' experiments becomes evident when evaluating less the products but rather the process involved (Saad, 2002). These processes of experimentation are characterized by flexibility and adaptive performance, and are significantly different from the standardized experimental design generally employed in academic research (Vogl, Kummer, Leitgeb, Schunko, & Aigner, 2015). Spontaneous variation during experimentation is considered a valid source of information itself, and it can be the essence of success for an experiment (Stolzenbach, 1999).…”

Converting to organic farming as a way to enhance adaptive capacity

“…Indeed, the interviewed farmers appreciate the conversion to organic farming as an opportunity to learn, as a welcome opportunity to break out of their routine, and as an opportunity to face a new challenge. Indeed, organic farmers often experiment, which allows them to keep their practices attuned to local specificities and adaptable to changing economic, social, and ecological conditions (Vogl et al 2015). Both learning and experimenting can be enhanced through a group process, where production methods are proposed and discussed, insights integrated, practices implemented on individual farms, and the outcome reflected on collectively (Lamine 2011).…”

Optimising survey effort to monitor environmental variables: A case study using New Zealand kiwifruit orchards

“…Knowing when there is enough evidence to change farming practice would also be very valuable, as experimentation can be expensive and can have several indirect costs (including the opportunity costs of not learning fast enough). Thus, power analyses made more accessible, as through provision of the simr package, is the first step to enabling even individual farmers to conduct efficient optimisation and adaptive management of their activities for multiple benefits (Vogl et al, 2015;Walters and Hilborn, 1978). More cost-effective monitoring and reliable sustainability risk management can now be applied to specific local contexts if power analysis is applied to preliminary data to fine-tune long-term investments.…”

“…Also, at the grassroots level, farmers frequently undertake informal trials and tests to improve their land-use practices and adapt to their local economic, social and ecological conditions (Vogl et al, 2015). However, many existing monitoring programmes suffer from design deficiencies because three basic questions have not been clearly addressed (Lindenmayer and Likens, 2010;Yoccoz et al, 2001): Why (for what specific purpose) are we monitoring?…”