Really Important to have Social Scientists Working in Agriculture

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.

Read about the NZ Agricultural Research Group on Sustainability (ARGOS) 

 

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.

Read the Future Agenda – The World in 2020

 

 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.