Final report for LNC18-407
Project Information
Increasing the prevalence of regenerative practices in commercial grain farming, such as diverse crop rotations, cover cropping, and reduced tillage, is critical to sustaining and improving the environmental quality of the natural resource base on which agriculture depends. Research is clear that regenerative practices both reduce and remediate the damaging environmental effects of commercial-scale, conventional agriculture, while enhancing economic, agronomic, and human health outcomes for farmers.
The literature indicates that the generally accepted model of economic decision-making does not sufficiently explain farmers' motivations when deciding whether to adopt regenerative practices, and underscores the importance of including social factors in the analysis. Identity-based decision-making is a theory of human motivation that explains how a person's perception of their identity shapes their choices. We hypothesize that assisting farmers in incorporating regenerative practices into their identity as "successful farmers" would facilitate the adoption of these practices. Through this project, we aim to better understand identity-based barriers to adoption of regenerative practices and to assist stakeholders in addressing these barriers in their educational programs.
Building upon the recommendations of previous scholarly work, we will take a qualitative case-study approach to this investigation. In this multi-phase study, we will conduct semi-structured interviews and focus groups to investigate how perceived identity shapes farmer willingness to adopt regenerative practices. We will then formulate a protocol to mitigate identity-based barriers and increase the likelihood that farmers will adopt regenerative practices. Using this protocol, we will develop a guide for use by educators and other stakeholders when developing their educational and outreach materials.
PROJECT OUTCOMES
Learning outcomes will allow farmers, educators, conservation associates, and other stakeholders to:
- understand how identity-based barriers affect decision-making on adopting regenerative farming practices;
- gain skills to overcome these identity-based barriers;
and allow farmers to:
- feel successful in the face of peer examination of their farming practices.
Action outcomes:
- Educators and conservation associates will utilize the findings of this project in their work.
- This project will increase the number of farmers adopting regenerative practices.
System-wide outcomes:
- The ecological condition of Midwest farms will improve with increased use of regenerative practices on commercial-scale grain farms.
This project aims to better understand identity-based barriers to adoption of regenerative practices in commercial grain production and to assist stakeholders in addressing these barriers in their educational and outreach programs.
Cooperators
- (Researcher)
- (Researcher)
Research
We hypothesize that assisting farmers in incorporating regenerative practices into their identity as "successful farmers" will facilitate the adoption of these practices. We also hypothesize that equipping stakeholders to better address identity-based barriers towards the adoption of regenerative practices in commercial grain production will assist them in providing stronger, more meaningful education and outreach programs.
March 2021 update: While not entirely surprising, incorporating regenerative and conservation-minded practices into identity is a complex task. The farmers we interviewed all held some level of a "stewardship ethic" as part of their farming identity. This makes matching our own identified practices to this identity a bit trickier. We recognize that the entire "system" that these farmers operate in affects all of their decision making and taking on only one part of the system is likely not enough to achieve the landscape-scale outcomes we desire. We are now investigating how to address the integration of conservation practices through the farmer's own "systems-thinking" approach. We are developing our protocol to help outreach practitioners identify the leverage points within the system most likely to affect a particular group of farmers willingness to adopt these practices.
To date, our approach to this investigation and methodology is as follows.
We began by generating a list of row crop farmers in the target research area through recruitment at Illinois Farm Progress Show and the All-Day Ag Outlook meeting as well as discussion with our farmer constituents. Through this process, we identified nearly 40 farmers to approach for an initial screening interview. Our goal is to conduct in-depth interviews with 20 farmers meeting the following criteria: are located in Illinois; dedicate a significant portion of their time and derive a significant portion of their income from farming (no “hobby” farmers); raise corn, soybeans, wheat, rye, or other grain crops at a commercial-scale; and have not been extensively interviewed about regenerative farming practices before (no “celebrity” farmers). Additionally, the makeup of the 20 farmers consists of 10 conventional farmers who use no regenerative practices, 5 conventional farmers who use at least one regenerative practice, and 5 farmers who are either transitioning or are currently certified organic.
We finalized the research protocol and developed a plan to begin piloting screening and in-depth interviews in January 2020.
By spring of 2020, we had conducted all of our in-depth interviews. We enlisted 20 farmers with varying degrees of conservation practice integration. With regenerative agricultural being very much outcomes-based, rather than practice-based our ability to neatly categorize farmers into our previously identified buckets was tricky. However, we do feel that we achieved a good representation of farmers with varied levels of conservation-mindedness in our region.
By fall of 2020, we had transcribed all of our interviews and began pulling out themes. Our dataset is incredibly rich! We returned to our literature review to compare themes, check our assumptions, and build out our findings.
In early 2021, we developed a draft research report and slide presentation to share with fellow researchers for feedback. We presented to Drs. Emily Heaton and Adam Davis from the University of Illinois' new Illinois Regenerative Agriculture Initiative, as well as Mallory Kreiger, former PI of this project. Additionally, Cassidy presented to a UIUC "Challenges in Sustainability" course. Each of these presentations provided confirmation that our research process and analysis were sound. However, they generated more questions about how to affect change within the market-driven commodity agricultural system.
We have a very rich dataset to work with. Our results are confirming what others have shown. How individuals integrate "successful farmer" into their identity is often inextricably linked to yield and profit and less closely linked to practices. This would make us believe that any conservation practice we desire a farmer adopt needs to align with yield and profit. Obviously, this creates a wrinkle as many conservation practices may reduce yield while increasing profit (or reducing cost). This also highlights the complexity of the system farmers are working within and the need for heuristic devices to ease decision-making.
We recognize that farmers seek out different information from different sources, and are careful about who they share their information with. The farmers we interviewed were likely to see their neighbors as competitors. These are competitors not only for market share, but for potential expansion as limits to available land restrict individual farm growth. This air of competition impedes our hope for peer sharing of practices, which we see as paramount to increasing adoption.
After initial analysis in 2020, we began focusing our protocol design on helping ag educators and outreach professionals develop their listening skills to identify methods of framing conservation practices. We see this as a two-step process, learning to listen and learning to respond. We hope to develop a kind of audit for educators to identify leverage points for practice adoption. This audit would engage the educator in a kind of "empathetic/supportive" listening that would help the educator direct the conversation toward aligning practice adoption with their values. (We still have ways to go to figure this out.)
In 2021, based on conversations with researchers and further refinement of our analysis, we shifted our thinking about our proposed intervention to consider activities that would help to "center" farmers in the greater agricultural system to better understand what factors are limiting or enabling of their adoption of any farming practice. Piloting will take place in 2022.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Shared farmer identity linked to industrial agriculture system:
- Independent, competitive, adaptable, market-oriented
- Reliable information sources: Professional service providers, corporate representatives, industry-sponsored meetings and conferences, commercial
- information services, non-competing commodity famers
- Advocates of conservation practices are to be “appeased” or resisted: Landlords, consumers, commodity buyers, federal government programs
System conditions:
- Scarce input: Land
- System power and influence: Landlords and their farm managers, equipment costs, land and input costs
- Competition among farmers for scarce land
- “Proof” of farmer competence: High yield per acre
- Emerging competitive advantage: Speaking the “language“ of landowners/farm managers; implementation of conservation practices
Functional barriers to cover crop implementation:
- Learning curve a temporary risk to yield and profits
- Additional trips to far-flung fields during crucial time periods
- Access to specialized equipment and inputs
Recommendations for educators looking to encourage conservation practices:
- Establishing personal relationships with farmers may help to increase receptiveness to conservation practices.● Including farmers-presenters who have hand-on experience and a personal stake in the outcome of the
conservation practice. - Discussing the learning curve needed for the implementation of conservation practices and exploring tactics for mitigating risk during the first several years, not just the first year.
- Offering multi-year incentives to farmers, especially those with low risk tolerance.
- Linking farmers to the needed inputs and equipment.
Our final recommendations come in the form of questions: 1) Could educational programs encouraging transition to conservation practices be more successful if they more accurately reflected the language and values of farmers’ identity vs. the perspectives and preoccupations of educators? 2) Given the sources of power in the system of industrial commodity agriculture, could conservation practices assist farmers in maintaining their land base as farmland consolidation continues?
Education
The educational approach used in this project will be developed based on the outcomes of the research. This has not yet been developed.
Based on our preliminary research results in 2020, we focused our protocol design on helping ag educators and outreach professionals develop their listening skills to identify methods of framing conservation practices. We see this as a two-step process, learning to listen and learning to respond. We hope to develop a kind of audit for educators to identify leverage points for practice adoption. This audit would engage the educator in a kind of “empathetic/supportive” listening that would help the educator direct the conversation toward aligning practice adoption with their values. (We still have ways to go to figure this out.)
In 2021, based on conversations with researchers and further refinement of our analysis, we shifted our thinking about our proposed intervention to consider activities that would help to "center" farmers in the greater agricultural system to better understand what factors are limiting or enabling of their adoption of any farming practice. Piloting will take place in 2022.
After several discussions and presentations of our research in 2022, we determined that shifting system conditions along with a lack of trusted messengers made our proposed intervention less than ideal. Instead we hosted an event where we invited all of the participants in our study to join us for a discussion about our findings as well as the state of agriculture in IL. While only a quarter of our participants joined this meeting, they provided a rich insight into our findings which led us to develop additional recommendations.
Project Activities
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation Summary:
In 2020, the research team presented preliminary findings to researchers and students to check our understanding and generate potential strategies to be used by ag educators.
We submitted a research abstract to the MOSES research forum and were invited to present a poster at the 2022 conference.
Learning Outcomes
- Sociology
Project Outcomes
All of our study participants were perennially adjusting their practices based on their reading of the system and in-field observations.
You can see quotes from farmers that participated in the research through our grant report at: https://www.thelandconnection.org/resource/farmer-identity-and-the-acceptance-of-conservation-practices-by-commodity-farmers/
The situation-specific dynamic quality of decision-making at which commodity farmers excel makes a durable predictive model for conservation decision-making elusive. Even when all of the variables are carefully identified and the methods are painstakingly developed (Addison, et. al., 2013), attempts to model conservation adoption decisions contain the
assumption that an aggregate snapshot at a given moment is predictive of the future.
Addressing functional challenges would likely not have an immediate impact on the weak support that some farmers
expressed for conservation. But in combination with incentives, it could smooth the way for farmers considering
implementation.
The farmers’ narratives revealed only a hazy “snapshot” of how farmers perceived the system of industrial commodity agriculture and their position within it at the end of 2019 and in early 2020. Further research to explore in more depth how cover crop awareness developed among commodity farmers over time would be useful in understanding the adoption process. How do conservation narratives and practices come to be accepted in the system where they are peripheral to the input-output based patterns of commodity agriculture and where advocacy often comes from sources viewed as less than trustworthy?
Several recommendations for educators looking to encourage conservation practices include:
- Establishing personal relationships with farmers may help to increase receptiveness to conservation practices.● Including farmers-presenters who have hand-on experience and a personal stake in the outcome of the conservation practice.
- Discussing the learning curve needed for the implementation of conservation practices and exploring tactics for mitigating risk during the first several years, not just the first year.
- Offering multi-year incentives to farmers, especially those with low risk tolerance.
- Linking farmers to the needed inputs and equipment.
Our final recommendations come in the form of questions: 1) Could educational programs encouraging transition to conservation practices be more successful if they more accurately reflected the language and values of farmers’ identity vs. the perspectives and preoccupations of educators? 2) Given the sources of power in the system of industrial commodity agriculture, could conservation practices assist farmers in maintaining their land base as farmland consolidation continues?
Information Products
- Farmer Identity and the Adoption of Conservation Practices by Commodity Farmers: A Case Study [POSTER] (Display)
- Farmer Identity and the Adoption of Conservation Practices by Commodity Farmers: A Case Study [Executive Summary] (Conference/Presentation Material)
- Farmer Identity and the Adoption of Conservation Practices by Commodity Farmers: A Case Study [REPORT] (Article/Newsletter/Blog)