Social scientists are very active in Agrifood.
That’s great!
I welcome these intelligent minds working in both the agriculture & food
space. Agrifood is about people. Dairy Farming is primarily about people.
How people think, make decisions, work with each other, how
we collectively live & work together is really important stuff. Yet
mainstream agricultural science, farmers & farming largely ignore the
social scientists & their work. I’ve just attended the Australia-NZ
Agri-food Research Network conference held at Massey University.
To my embarrassment I admit I was largely unaware of the research
work being undertaken in the Agrifood space by social scientists. These people
work in Geography, Politics, Rural Sociology, Psychology, Maori studies,
Economics, Extension, History, Business Studies, Communication & the
Environment. What’s more there are some very good postgraduate students…. lots
of them!
It is so encouraging to see Agrifood attracting bright young people & the Research Network supporting these young scientists.
There were 2 presentations that struck a particular chord
with me. Firstly Dr Lesley Hunt’s paper, from the ARGOS Project (a number of
papers), stating that not all farmers are driven by the profit/increase production
motive. Not new information but really important to be said again when we are
facing important public problems like sustainability, climate change & the
environment. Farmers have many goals, motivations & value systems that
encourage different systems & create a complex rural society &
community. NZ research & extension is totally focussed on profit &
increased output. Reference to “the top quartile farmers” might be feel good
stuff but is rarely helpful in understanding farmer decision making.
Marie McEntee’s study (University of Auckland) into how effective NZ Agricultural Extension is, showed a dominance of “Top down” linear thinking and approaches being used.
The mere term “Transfer of Technology” implies a transfer of
information. Can scientists really develop “better” solutions? It’s all too
easy to blame the end user for failure to adopt. Farmers are being seen as
adopters not as originators of knowledge. Why? This was an excellent presentation
for those who are listening.
In my experience farmers are fully in control of the on farm
decision making process. They drive it. Farmers are actively creating new
knowledge & information (research) all the time but are largely ignored by
extension & research.
Why would they respond to top down technology transfer? They are
however very keen to participate in research & development.
The rural community has complex networks that work very
effectively to enable change. So if science & society want change that
involves farmers, we’d better all get to understand farmers, farming families
& the rural networks. These networks include social media and are global.
This is really exciting & chaotic.
The “Future Agenda”
forum was created by the Vodafone company.Much of the future agenda involves social
change. Issues such as “Cocktail Identities”, Enjoying the Ordinary”, “Switching
off” are already here & are likely to become even more important.
Agrifood,
including pasture based dairy farmers need to understand the social future. We
need to better understand people. Social Scientists have much to offer.
The internet has enabled people all over the world to connect
& become a community.
The impact of increasingly global common interest
groups with which people align their priorities should not be ignored by
farmers or researchers. Priorities like sustainability, environmentally friendly, quality food
& good diets will impact massively on the way we farm in the future.
