CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Farmers who perceive scientists as "insensitive outsiders" may ignore their expertise and persist in agricultural and environmental practices that stand in the way of effective, community-based watershed management, says a team of researchers at the University of Illinois.
"Watershed management, although dependent on science and engineering, is a process that is fundamentally social in nature," said David Wilson, a UI professor of geography. "Because farmers have proven to be very tenacious resistors of scientific knowledge and innovation, we are seeking better ways of interacting with them and disseminating relevant scientific information." During the past three years, Wilson and his colleagues -- Bruce Rhoads and Edwin Herricks at the UI and Michael Urban at the University of Missouri -- interviewed 78 Central Illinois farmers to better understand the reasons for the resistance. With funding provided by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation, the researchers explored the farmers' lives and habits, examined their agricultural and environmental practices, and discussed the meanings behind those practices.
"Our fieldwork revealed that farmer agricultural practices are diverse, highly ritualized and help constitute their identities in many unexpected ways," Wilson said. "For example, farmers see watersheds not only as something that will assist them with their farming practices, but also as places where they can cultivate a certain kind of aesthetic that they find very satisfying." Farmers tend to see beauty in terms of a highly modified, geometrically simplified landscape, Wilson said. "We all need beauty in our lives, and farmers actively cultivate a form of beauty through practices such as standard row cropping and the straightening and dredging of stream channels. But modifying those channels also significantly reduces biodiversity and results in poorer stream habitats."
To communicate effectively with farmers, scientists must integrate an understanding of both natural science and social science, Wilson said. "Farmers are complex individuals whose needs must be considered. They see themselves as proud individualists who provide the foodstuffs without which society could not operate. They also see themselves as passionate environmentalists and caretakers of the soil, and they engage in practices that reinforce their sense of environmentalism.
"Scientists must appeal to farmers at their level, and be sensitive to the rituals and practices that constitute their shared cultural identity. To be accepted, scientific recommendations have to resonate with farmers; they must make sense to them in their life worlds and reinforce their sense of identity." Scientists can best interact with farmers when they make a serious attempt to recognize, understand and work within their place-based perspectives, Wilson said. "When scientists invest the time and energy to establish a relationship of trust and mutual cooperation with farmers, very effective partnerships can be forged that benefit the environment."