Sustainable Agriculture and Food: Four volume set (Earthscan Reference Collections)

A New Practice: Facilitating Sustainable Agriculture 305

Norsemen on Greenland?’ remains unanswered now that we have finished the
book, but we have become a little clearer about the effort that needs to be made
and we feel heartened by that understanding.

A Social Science Perspective

This book approaches sustainable farming from the point of view of social science.
Hence its central focus is the human actor, and not the biophysical processes occur-
ring in the agroecosystem (see Box 16.1). As you will see later, this has important
implications for the way we define sustainability. It also means that this book does
not deal in detail with the agronomic or other practices that are needed for using

Box 16.1 The area of discourse of this book

1 2 3 4

farm ↔ farmer ↔ facilitator ↔ etc.

The relationship between farmer and farm (1) is that of a human being dealing with

biophysical resources and processes. Natural science supports the technologies

and interventions used by the farmer to make the biophysical environment yield

desired outcomes. These ‘technical’ aspects do not constitute the area of discourse

of this book.

But change in relationship 1 is only possible if the farmer him/herself engages in

learning (2). The learning process lies at the heart of this book. As we shall see, the

transformation to sustainable agriculture requires a fundamental change in learning

processes. These turn out to be very different from the well-established processes

of adoption of add-on innovations, in the ‘more of the same’ fashion, which occur

when the farmer tries to improve conventional farm management.

Learning can be facilitated (relationship 3). The facilitation of learning is also a core

subject of the book. Most of the contributors, including the editors, are engaged in

extension and innovation studies. That is, they are interested in fostering voluntary

change in behaviour through communication, and in innovation as an outcome of

social interaction (e.g. Röling, 1988). Other perspectives on innovation, for example,

as a process induced by changes in relative factor prices (Ruttan and Hayami, 1984)

are not dealt with, although we recognize that changed relative factor prices might

well motivate innovative interaction.

The case studies reaffirm the proposition that learning and facilitation occur in spe-

cific institutional frameworks and policy contexts (relationship 4), and that the nature

of these frameworks and contexts is of crucial importance for the transformation of

farming. Moreover, the cases illustrate how the institutional and policy changes

required for scaling-up successes achieved on a pilot scale cause strife and conflict

for which appropriate communication and negotiation strategies and methodolo-

gies are needed.