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Engaging in sustainable farm
management:
sharing understanding and reshaping
agendas
Janet Dwyer & Jane Mills
Outline
• Challenges for sustainable farming
• Conceptual framework – key factors for policy
success, promoting positive change
• Evidence from recent research: what matters,
what has influence, and how?
• Summary – new understandings, new
agendas: how can policies do better?
Environmental challenges
• Climate change – increased
vulnerability to heat, drought and
disease; more flood risk and
intense weather damage; soil
erosion; scope to build carbon
• Biodiversity decline – diffuse /
multiple actions & pressures
• Water - quality and quantity
concerns, protecting hydrological
cycles, rational input use
• Continuing land-take for housing,
infrastructure
• Buoyant demand for leisure
Increasing global
food demand Growing competition for energy
from fossil fuels, uncertain supplies
& price trends
Need to ‘mainstream’ sustainable practice,
maintain production but increase resource efficiency,
hand-in-hand with environmental management:
New demands to accommodate: energy generation,
carbon storage, flood regulation, lower N and P use
Key points
• Embed sustainability in all business
management
– building upon cross-compliance, voluntary
action and the legacy of past schemes
– reflecting on successes and problems
• Retain capacity to respond to change
– Uncertain / risky volatile markets & climate
– No-one has all the answers – diverse
options, for resilience
Evidence from Research
• 2-year study for Defra on encouraging
positive farmer behaviour for environment
(led by CCRI with Macaulay; Dwyer et al,
2007)
• Understanding farmer attitudes to
environmental management (Defra 2012-
13) - 60 in-depth case study farmers (Mills
et al, 2013)
• Evaluation of many different approaches (CFE, cross-compliance, ES, collaborative groups,
regional projects)
Original framework -
key factors for achieving
changeSuccessfully engaging
farmers
Farmers’ willingness to
changeFarmers’ capacity to
change
Sustained and high
quality
management
Recognising heterogeneity
‘Hard to reach’ /
disengaged?
Member of RSPB
but – perceived
difficulties?
Capacity to
implement but not
willing?
Negative
attitude?Not engaged –
concerns
about outside
interference?
Might withdraw
from AE once
funding ceases?
Capacity
Engaged
Willingness
Capacity
Engaged
Willingness
Influences on Willingness
Societal level influence
Community-
level influence
Farm level influence
Complex inter-relationship of influences
Personal belief / moral norms
(Self-expectations based on internalised
values)
“I’ve always been conscious of the wildlife around me.
My father was a big believer in that we’re only farming
for a very short period of time, so we’re only
borrowing the land … and when you borrow anything
you always put it back as good or better as when you
got it. That’s deep inside me with everything I do… “
Implications for Engagement
• Difficult to change individual personal beliefs and moral
norms as part of self identify.
• Good for approaches to focus on community and
societal level influences
Community level: Social norms
(influence of significant others on
decision-making)
Implications for Engagement
• Advice delivered in groups
positive social norm
increase in perceived efficacy of action
Who is in the farmers’ network?
Whom do they trust? Working
in partnership - CFE
“It is easier to have the margin because on
the other side of the ditch the land belongs to
an ecological trust and they have trees and
fancy grass and bird boxes and I thought it
might look like I was doing my bit as well”.
“Over the years farmers have had a lot
of bad publicity and rightly so.., in those
days we were burning straw and if you
lost a hedge, I mean we put firebreaks
in, but no one said much about it “.
• Societal influence important in changing
willingness – does society want it?
• Is positive farmer behaviour recognised by
society?
Feedback identity verification
Implications for Engagement
Summary: messages for policy
1. A variety of approaches is needed; personal
interaction will improve targeting & design
2. Values and ‘social norms’ matter, as well as
pragmatic / economic factors – policy should
act at all levels, and be aware of interactions
3. A ‘value-action link’ is critical: farmers
enabled to see the benefit of their actions; to
believe they can make a difference; working
together with others as respected partners
Everyone’s talking
about partnerships…
- but our biggest
funding schemes are
largely centralist,
expert-defined, thinly
staffed, vulnerable to
short-term policy
imperatives….
How can policy improve?
• Risk-sharing: give more medium-term certainty,
continuity in staff & resources (foster trusted,
respectful relationships)
• Avoid audit-led, distanced policy design
(bureaucratic, inflexible, inefficient) - work at local
level, integrate goals, share agendas
• Foster ‘learning communities’ between officials,
scientists, farmers, NGOs - allowing experiments,
developing ideas, evolving visions
• Better outreach to the disengaged – more
personal contact, quick wins, better feedback
Planning,
Linking,
Discussing,
Learning,
Scoping
Investing,
Realising
© Pontbren
