The role of networks of practice and webs of influencers on farmers' engagement with and learning about agricultural innovations

Drawing on the UK research project, ‘Farmers’ understandings of GM crops within local communities’, this paper considers the application of the concepts of communities of practice and networks of practice in the agricultural context. A brief review of theories about communities of practice and networks of practice is given and some of our findings are discussed in the context of those theories.Farmers were found to be a particular type of network of practice, characterised by a weak organisational framework but with a relatively stable network of other communities of practice (or networks of practice) they interact with, which we have called a ‘web of influencers on practice’. Together, farmers’ network of practice and their web of influencers on practice represent the whole environment in which learning may occur, and so provide insights into their social learning system. Most farmers have to work at the boundary of their network of practice and their web of influencers, which creates a significant load on their knowledge management. This is in contrast to other networks of practice where only some members take on this boundary brokering role. The paper concludes that these theories (on networks and communities of practice) provide a useful lens through which to view farmers and their practice, highlighting important points for policy. However, in such contexts these theories need to be extended to include the role of a broader ‘web of influencers on practice’.     

Landcare as a politically relevant new social movement?

This paper explores the political relevance of the Landcare movement in Australia in an attempt to understand the capacity of rural people to develop political outcomes through social action in civil society. We relate Claus Offe's notion of a politically relevant new social movement to movement development in Landcare and discuss the implications of this in terms of movement stability, relationships with the state and neo-liberal governance in Australia.Landcare has many of the characteristics attributed to new social movements. People involved in Landcare typically express a commitment to participatory forms of action and coordination, believe in a ‘win-win’ approach to conflict and are opposed to government ‘telling them what to do’. Forms of limited protest and conflict with government occur when core values of autonomy and participation are perceived to be under threat and these values are perceived to be universal rather than just applying to movement participants. However, in contrast to the attributes associated with new social movements, Landcare does not have an outwardly ‘oppositional’ character and a high proportion of movement members in Landcare are farmers and close to the imperatives of agricultural commodity production. Further, the state has had a central role in the initiation and ongoing support of the ‘movement’.These two latter points of difference, however, confer the most ‘political relevance’ to the movement. The role of the state in catalysing Landcare and promoting the ‘program’ in terms of its participatory values, confers significant legitimacy on the outcomes of participatory Landcare fora. Further, the increased transparency and learning of the environment through Landcare activities by farmers can lead to a questioning of the current economic orthodoxy that underpins rural policy.     

Educational qualifications of UK farmers: A review

Better-educated farmers are known to make greater use of information, advice and training, to participate more in government schemes and to be more proactive in adjusting to change and planning for the future of the business. Such traits are in greater demand as the pace of change accelerates. Yet there is no single authoritative source of information on the educational attainment levels of UK farmers and no benchmark against which to monitor trends. This literature review attempts to integrate evidence from all available sources. The consensus emerging from a number of recent studies seems to be that at least one-third and possibly half of all UK farmers today have pursued courses of further or higher education and obtained qualifications, largely in agriculture or related subjects. About 4–6% have degrees, a similar number have HNDs and between a quarter and a third have FE qualifications from full-time or part-time study. The proportion qualified has risen steeply since the Second World War but still compares unfavourably with managers of other small businesses. Higher levels of educational attainment are associated with large farms and the arable east, with employers, female or pluriactive farmers and with farm managers. Although these relationships tend to be dismissed as ‘age effects’ or ‘size effects’, it is suggested that education may be exerting an independent influence on farmer behaviour.     

The environmental belief systems of organic and conventional farmers: Evidence from central-southern England

Little comparative work has been conducted on the environmental belief systems and behaviours of conventional and organic farmers, especially in relation to farming culture, the environment and lowland farmland avifauna. Adopting a modified behavioural approach, this paper analyses the ways in which the environmental attitudes and understandings of farmers in central-southern England influence their behaviour. Key stakeholder and farmer interviews and a focus group discussion showed how some organic farmers tend to have small, diverse and untidy farms, ecocentric attitudes and a non-exploitative approach towards farming which includes an appreciation of farmland birds. This often contrasts with the tidy, well-organised conventional farmers with their larger, specialised farms, technocentric attitudes and exploitative view of nature, frequently related to creating pheasant cover and the belief that corvids and birds of prey are vermin and should therefore be eradicated. However, these attitudes and behaviours may not necessarily be representative of any differences between those farmers loosely labelled as ‘organic’ and ‘conventional’.     

From ‘sustainable rural communities’ to ‘social sustainability': giving voice to diversity in Mangakahia Valley, New Zealand

Despite widespread interest in the notion of sustainability, little progress has been made towards an understanding of its social dimensions. Nonetheless, the concept of ‘sustainable rural communities’ is embedded in popular, policy and academic discourses, where the needs of ‘rural communities’ are usually equated with those of farm families. Our ethnographic research in Northland, New Zealand illustrates the diverse interests to be found within ‘rural communities'. Interviews and participant observation were undertaken between August 1995 and July 1996 in the Mangakahia Valley. The increasing divergence in the ethnic, class and occupational makeup of the population has brought with it complexities in terms of what can be said to contribute to ‘sustainable rural communities'. We suggest that ‘sustainable rural communities’ be treated as a folk category, and instead, social science discourse should resort to the broader concept of social sustainability, which will have a locally defined content, not a universal definition, but will include elements of livelihood, social participation, justice and equity.     

Farm diversification, tenancy and CAP reform: Results from a survey of tenant farmers in England

Little work has considered explicitly the role of farm tenancy in influencing the uptake (or not) of diversification activities. The need to examine this link has been heightened because of the 2003 CAP reforms and the decision to tie Single Farm Payment (SFP) entitlement to the land rather than what is produced on that land. The main objective of this paper, therefore, is to examine the nature of diversification activities on tenant farms in England, which includes a consideration of how the introduction of the SFP and other CAP reforms may influence such restructuring processes. Results from a national postal survey, supported by tenant farmer/landlord interviews and a workshop, reveal high rates of farm diversification on farms with tenanted land. However, if one takes away contract/hire services the rate of diversification on tenant farms is much less. Tenant farms appear to favour more ‘traditional’ diversification activities and the results also demonstrate an increasing need to move towards more ‘encultured’ definitions of farm diversification. The second key finding to emerge from the research relates to the high levels of uncertainty and negativity surrounding the potential impacts of the CAP reforms, and SFP in particular, on farm business behaviour. Tenant farmers were more concerned about levels of SFP and entitlement than future investment decisions, including diversification.     

New community governance in small rural towns: the Australian experience

State and federal governments in Australia have developed a range of policy instruments for rural areas in Australia that are infused with a new sense of ‘community’, employing leading concepts like social capital, social enterprise, community development, partnerships and community building. This has encouraged local people and organisations to play a greater role in the provision of their local services and has led to the development of a variety of ‘community’ organisations aimed at stemming social and economic decline. In Victoria, local decision-making, before municipal amalgamations, gave small towns some sense of autonomy and some discretion over their affairs. However, following municipal amalgamations these small towns lost many of the resources—legal, financial, political, informational and organisational—associated with their former municipal status. This left a vacuum in these communities and the outcome was the emergence of local development groups. Some of these groups are new but many of them are organisations that have been reconstituted as groups with a broader community focus. The outcomes have varied from place to place but overall there has been a significant shift in governance processes at community level. This paper looks at the processes of ‘community governance’ and how it applies in a number of case studies in Victoria.     

Women farm workers on South African deciduous fruit farms: Gender relations and the structuring of work

Utilizing a feminist perspective and based on data obtained by interviewing 350 women farm workers on South African deciduous fruit farms, the article analyses how existing gender relations structure various aspects of women's paid work on farms. It explores the recruitment and employment of women, the division of labour and existing wage differentials between women and men workers, and the nature of women's work relations. Women's participation in the reconstitution of existing gender relations and the obstruction of women's choices are interpreted within the context of ‘the farm as family’ and the farm worker community as subculture. It is suggested that some women workers on fruit farms are gaining a measure of control over certain aspects of their work lives. The transformation of traditional to neo-paternalistic labour relations, the extension of labour legislation to the agricultural sector, and especially farmers' changing perceptions of women (and consequently their utilization as farm workers) have been central to women farm workers gaining more power in the workplace.     

Contesting the neoliberal project for agriculture: Productivist and multifunctional trajectories in the European Union and Australia

The liberalisation of agricultural trade is strongly contested as an international policy project. In the context of the current World Trade Organisation (WTO) Doha trade round, concerns revolve around the implications of freer trade for rural livelihoods and environments. Analysis of this complex and morally charged issue offers important insights into the nature of resistance to the neoliberal agenda. This resistance has been expressed in terms of perceived threats to the ‘multifunctionality’ of agriculture and its ability to provide public environmental and social benefits. We focus specifically on Australia and the European Union (EU), key players in the WTO process but diametrically opposed in their embrace of, or resistance to, agricultural neoliberalisation. While the EU has sought to maintain trade barriers in order to protect both marginal areas and the market advantages derived from a heavily-subsidised, productivist agriculture, Australia relies on ‘competitive productivism’ – unsubsidised, highly productive agriculture – to win markets. There is nevertheless evidence that the compatibility of market rule with agri-environmental (and, to a lesser extent, social) sustainability is being contested in both Australia and the EU, particularly at the regional scale. The nature and terms of this contestation are different, however, given the radically divergent macro-economic and socio-political contexts in which it is being framed. The debate about the socio-environmental implications of market opening within the agriculturally protectionist environment of the EU is largely anticipatory and risk-averting, while in the already market-exposed Australian context it is increasingly compensatory and harm-minimising. In this paper, we argue that neoliberalisation as a policy agenda is reshaped in different states and regions through processes of resistance and accommodation arising from particular geographical, historical, political and institutional contexts, and as a response to crises.     

Farm pluriactivity and rural policy: Some evidence from Wales1

Drawing on data from 427 interviews in Wales, U.K., this paper examines the ability of internal and external variables to explain the phenomenon of pluriactivity in farm households. It is the household as a unit, and the process of maintaining its viability, that forms the focus of the study, with pluriactivity being defined as the generation of income additional to that from primary agriculture, by any member of the household.The survey revealed that, whilst primary agriculture retains its position as the main income, only a minority of households did not have a supplemental source of income. Indeed, these ‘other sources’ can be financially very important. Off-farm work was the most significant type. A degree of differentiation was apparent between farmer, spouse and other family members and the type of incomegenerating activity.Internal variables (particularly physical farm size, farm type, education and ethnicity) are shown to have some statistical ability to explain the patterns of pluriactivity.Pluriactivity is of interest in the present environment of agricultural policy reform. However, there is some evidence that pluriactivity is not driven solely by financial pressure or policy measures aimed at farm diversification. The paper concludes that policy aimed at the diversification of the farm business may be less than successful as many internal and external factors appear to work to restrict such activities. Most of the contemporary growth in pluriactivity has been in the form of off-farm jobs — a policy sector presently divorced from farm/agricultural policy.     

Farmers' perceptions of agrarian change in north-west Portugal

Geographers have consistently failed to analyse the perceptions of the inhabitants of rural areas, and in particular farmers' views of agrarian change. This paper analyses the perceptions of farmers in the agricultural region of Entre-Douro e Minho in north-west Portugal. Six villages with contrasting levels of innovation adoption were studied in 1983, and it is shown that there are major differences in the perceptions of farmers within these different parts of the region. These differences cannot be explained simply in terms of the age, tenure and education of the farmers, and it seems that the activities of rural extension officers, the general nature of the ‘place’ of each village, and its accessibility play important roles in influencing the perceptions of the farmers. Above all, it illustrates that, rather than being traditional and conservative, many of the farmers of north-west Portugal are keen to adopt new farming techniques.     

Tamworth, Australia's ‘country music capital’: place marketing, rurality, and resident reactions

Since the 1970s, Tamworth has become well known as Australia's ‘country music capital’. Its annual Country and Western Music Festival has become the leading event of its type in Australia, attracting over 60,000 visitors every year. The festival, and country music more generally, have become central to the town's identity and tourism marketing strategies. This article discusses the social constructions that have surrounded Tamworth's transition to ‘country music capital’—of the ‘rural’, and of ‘country’—within the context of debates about the politics of place marketing. Textual analysis of promotional material and built landscapes reveals representations of rurality (or ‘senses of the rural’). In their most commercial form, representations of rurality converge on a dominant notion of ‘country’, quite different from the ‘countryside’ and ‘rural idyll’ in England. This dominant, or normative ‘country’ forms the basis of imagery for the festival, the Town's marketing strategy, and associated advertising campaigns by major sponsors. It is predominantly masculine, white, working class and nationalist. But links between musical style and discourses of place are complex. Colonial British histories, Celtic musical traditions and North American popular culture all inform ‘country’ in Tamworth, dissipating nationalist interpretations. Normative constructions also contrast with other, heterogeneous ruralities in Australia, that include the lived experiences of rural Australians, and on stage—in country music—where multiple ‘ruralised’ identities are performed. Even those who stand to benefit from place promotion have been uncertain about country music and ‘the country’, because of associated discourses of Tamworth as ‘hick’ and ‘redneck’. In the final section of the paper, reactions of residents to constructions of Tamworth as country music capital are discussed, via the results of a simple resident survey. In contrast to previous studies of the disempowering politics of place marketing, Tamworth residents were on the whole supportive of the new associations and images for the town, despite ‘hick’ connotations, as it has become a centre for ‘country’, and for country music. Reasons for this are explored, and resistances discussed. The result is a complex and entangled politics of national identity, gender, race and class, where meanings for place are variously interpreted and negotiated.     

The Australian Landcare movement: towards ‘post-productivist’ rural governance?

This paper analyses whether the Australian Landcare movement complies with notions of ‘post-productivist rural governance’. The paper argues that Landcare has been a vast improvement on previous approaches to the management of the countryside in Australia, and that it has managed to mobilise a large cross-section of stakeholders. However, the Landcare movement only depicts certain characteristics of post-productivist rural governance. Although Landcare has some elements that fit in with theorisations of social movements, it still depicts many characteristics that show its close affiliation with the state and its agencies (in particular budgetary shackles). Landcare cannot be conceptualised as a fully inclusive movement, and there is little evidence that Landcare has been able to actively shape government policy. However, Landcare has contributed towards changing environmental attitudes, which can be seen as a key precondition for the successful implementation of post-productivist rural governance structures. In particular, Landcare's innovative approach of mutual farm visits, and its emphasis on the demonstration of ‘best practice’, has led to both an increased awareness of land degradation problems and the creation of grassroots ‘information networks’. There has also been some success with regard to Landcare's ability to change attitudes of the wider Australian public. Two important lessons with regard to conceptualisations of post-productivist rural governance emerge. First, individual components of post-productivist rural governance may change at different times, with the attitudinal level most influenced by Landcare, while underlying socio-political productivist structures will take much longer to change. Second, the problem in being able to label Landcare (the most innovative rural programme in advanced economies) as an expression of post-productivist rural governance shows how far away rural programmes in advanced economies still may be from such new forms of governance. The results, therefore, support those advocating that post-productivism may only be a theoretical construct in the minds of academics, rather than an expression of reality on the ground.     

Re-discovering the social: neo-liberalism and hybrid practices of governing in rural natural resource management

Since the 1980s, natural resource management (NRM) in rural Australia has been underpinned by rationalities and technologies of governing that constitute agricultural landscapes and resource managers in economically rational terms. While it is tempting to interpret these forms of regulation as part of a broad shift away from social forms of governing, this paper argues that ‘the social’ remains of crucial significance in understanding how both natural environments and the capacities of individuals to manage these environments are constructed. Drawing upon recent work in the Foucauldian-inspired literature on governmentality and, in particular, Stenson and Watt's (Urban Studies 36(1) (1999) 189–201) concept of hybrid governance, this paper examines how particular representations of ‘the social’ are assembled through strategies of NRM. Using the National Landcare Program (NLP) and Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) as examples, we consider how ‘social’ data is being incorporated into resource management strategies, and how this re-shapes both ‘the social’ and NRM as domains of governance. While the NLP and NHT incorporate concerns about social responsibility, they define these in terms of the capacity of individuals to respond to changing economic circumstances. This effectively defines land managers as socially and ecologically responsible only to the extent that they have the managerial capacities to pursue economically ‘rational’ practices. In concluding, we argue that hybrid practices of governing are indeed evident in NRM in Australia and that the concept of ‘hybrid governance’ requires further attention in understanding how rural spaces are made knowable and shaped as objects of knowledge.     

The role of natural heritage in rural development: An analysis of economic linkages in Scotland

There is growing recognition of the important role played by natural heritage in rural economic development, but limited empirical work as yet to inform this debate. This paper examines the nature and strength of local economic linkages associated with the natural heritage in four case study areas in Scotland, differentiated in terms of their peripherality and dependence on the natural heritage. A framework for identifying ‘natural heritage activities’ in different localities is developed and applied in each study area. The framework distinguishes between three types of natural heritage activities, ‘core’ activities, such as environmental management; ‘primary production and extraction’ activities; and ‘reliant’ activities where the natural heritage is highly important to a business's commercial viability. Analysis of first-round economic linkages and multiplier effects of local economic activity in the four case study areas indicates that natural heritage ‘reliant’ activities have the greatest potential for generating local economic benefits through their propensity to source locally. They are also found to contribute more significantly to the economic base of the study areas through sales of goods and services to visitors. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

From ‘weak’ to ‘strong’ multifunctionality: Conceptualising farm-level multifunctional transitional pathways

Building on normative conceptualisations of multifunctionality as a decision-making spectrum bounded by productivist and non-productivist action and thought, this paper analyses farm-level multifunctional agricultural transitions. First, the paper suggests that it may be possible to categorise different farm types along the productivist/non-productivist multifunctionality spectrum, and that transitional potential from weak to strong multifunctionality often differs between different categories of farms and types of farm ownership. Second, the paper conceptualises multifunctional transitional processes at farm level over time, and introduces the notions of multifunctional path dependency and decision-making corridors, the latter of which can be understood as ‘bundles’ of decision-making opportunities bounded by productivist and non-productivist action and thought. The analysis suggests that system memory plays an important role in defining the likelihood of multifunctional actions, and argues that transitional ruptures—sudden breaks in transitional pathways—often characterise farm-level transitions. The paper concludes by highlighting the methodological challenges awaiting future researchers of multifunctional agricultural transitions.     

Unpacking the terms of engagement with local food at the Farmers’ Market: Insights from Ontario

Amidst much discussion of the values and venues of local food, the Farmers’ Market (FM) has emerged as an important, but somewhat uncertain, site of engagement for producers, consumers and local food ‘champions’. Despite the evident certainty of various operational rules, the FM should be seen as a complex and ambiguous space where (contingent) notions of local, quality, authenticity and legitimacy find expression in communications and transactions around food. This paper seeks to extend current reflections on the nature of the contemporary FM and its relationship to the tenets of local food. An empirical analysis involving sellers, shoppers and managers at 15 markets in the Province of Ontario, Canada sought to understand how participants ‘read’ the market as an operating space and subsequently construct the terms of (their) engagement. Findings suggest that Ontario FM customers wish to support farmers and farming via their food-related spending and express attachments to a wide range of alleged benefits pertaining to local food. Yet these values are also malleable in their meaning and amenable to trade-off against other considerations—particularly where social capital is concerned. The notion of ‘local’ emerges as being widely valued but also highly interpretive in its meaning and variable in its absolute importance. The paper concludes with some reflection on the degree to which the findings support, challenge or modify current normative beliefs about local food at the FM.     

Attitudes to agricultural policy and farming futures in the context of the 2003 CAP reform: A comparison of farmers in selected established and new Member States

Farmers’ attitudes, to agricultural production, diversification and policy support, and behavioural intentions in five Member States of the EU (France, Lithuania, Slovakia, Sweden, England) are analysed comparatively. Groups of farmers with similarly held attitudes are identified using cluster analysis to investigate whether differences in attitudes are defined predominately according to national, east–west, size or other criteria. The results highlight that the vast majority of farmers in the enlarged EU retain a productivist mindset, wish to maintain an agricultural focus and strongly reject notions of policy liberalisation. However, while the overwhelming majority advocate protection they are more receptive to greater flexibility in terms of the instruments through which policy support may be delivered. Overall, the strongest opposition to policy liberalisation comes from farmers in the New Member States of the EU.     

A simple theory of ‘meso’. On the co-evolution of institutions and platform size—With an application to varieties of capitalism and ‘medium-sized’ countries

This paper deals with institutional emergence in the well-known ‘evolution of cooperation’ framework and focuses on its size dimension. It is argued that some ‘meso’ (rather than ‘macro’) level (to be numerically determined) is the proper level of cultural emergence, diffusion, and retention. Also Schumpeterian economists (K. Dopfer et al.) have discussed institutions as ‘meso’ phenomena, and Schelling, Axelrod, Arthur, Lindgren, and many others have dealt with ‘critical masses’ of coordinated agents, including related segregations of populations. However, the process and logic of emergent group size has rarely been explicitly explored so far. In this paper, ‘meso’ will be explained, in an evolutionary and game–theoretic frame and a population perspective, in terms of a cooperating group smaller than the whole population involved. Mechanisms such as memory, monitoring, reputation chains, and active partner selection will loosen the total connectivity of the deterministic ‘single-shot’ benchmark and thus allow for emergent ‘meso’-sized arenas, while expectations to meet a cooperative partner next round remain sufficiently high. Applications of ‘meso-nomia’ include the deep structure of ‘general trust’ and the surprisingly high macro-economic and macro-social performance in ‘small’ and ‘well-networked’ countries which helps to explain persistent ‘varieties of capitalism’. A strategy for empirical application of the theoretical approach and some first empirical indications of its relevance are presented.     

The new squirearchy and emergent cultures of the new middle classes in rural areas

In part prompted by a recent spate of media reports this paper explores the emergence of a ‘new squirearchy’ in the English countryside. In doing so, it aims to both illuminate a particular facet of rural social life and help reignite interest in the cultures of rural class. Whilst relationships between rural class and culture were a source of excitement during the 1990s, much of this interest has apparently spluttered if not died, despite class itself remaining very much a live issue for rural dwellers. The paper draws on the findings of an in-depth ethnographic study to highlight the significance of performance and symbolic boundary-marking in the construction and reproduction of social identity. The focus is the activities and sites of ‘the pub’, ‘the hunt’ and ‘the shoot’, which have been key in the emergence of the new squirearchy in the study area. The paper shows the importance of lay classifications based on evaluations of cultural (in)competence and morality, and suggests that the performance and boundary-marking of the new squirearchy in tandem with other identities is evidence of a more extensive, complex and ambiguous ‘culture of middle-classness’ in rural areas.