Other
Soil quality is in decline in many parts of the world, in part due to the
intensification of agricultural practices. Whilst economic instruments and
regulations can help incentivise uptake of more sustainable soil
management practices, they rarely motivate long-term behavior change
when used alone. We are now beginning to pay attention to the complex
social factors that affect uptake of sustainable soil management practices.
To understand why some communities try these practices whilst others do
not, we undertook a narrative review to understand how social capital
influences adoption. We found that the four components of social capital –
trust, norms, connectedness and power – can all influence the decision of
farmers to change their soil management. Specifically, information flows
more effectively across trusted, diverse networks where social norms exist
to encourage innovation. Uptake is more limited in homogenous, close-knit
farming communities that do not have many links with non-farmers and
where there is a strong social norm to adhere to the status quo. Power can
enhance or inhibit uptake depending on how it is managed. Future
research, policy and practice should consider whether a lack of effective
social capital could hinder uptake of new practices and, if so, which aspects
of social capital could be developed to increase adoption of sustainable soil
management practices. Enabling diverse, collaborative groups (including
farmers, advisers and government officials) to work constructively together
could help build effective social capital, where they can co-define, -develop
and -enact measures to sustainably manage soils.Niki A. Rust, Sara Iversen, Mark S. Reed, Rosmarie K. Neumann School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, UK, Newcastle, UK
Emilia Noel Ptak, Morten Graversgaard, Chris Kjeldsen, Tommy Dalgaard Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University,, Blichers Allé 20, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark
Jasper R. de Vries Strategic Communication Group, Wageningen University, Hollandsweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands
Julie Ingram, Jane Mills Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI), University of Gloucestershire, Francis Close Hall, Cheltenham, UK
Melanie Muro Milieu Consulting, Chaussée de Charleroi 112, Brussels, 1060, Belgium
Source:https://bit.ly/3hVVgtg
Courtesy:https://www.academia.edu
Copyright: © 2020 Rust NA et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.