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Abstract The carbon content of soil affects physical, biological and chemical properties of soil and is a major factor in its overall health and productivity. Maintaining soil carbon stocks and reducing carbon dioxide emissions also contributes to climate change mitigation. The majority of these functions are closely linked to the stocks and flows of soil organic carbon. There is an impetus therefore for policy makers and scientists in the agricultural context to identify agronomic and soil management practices that can increase carbon stocks and optimise carbon use (flows). This is something the scientific community is addressing. Such developments raise the issue of communication between scientists and the farming community, particularly given the scientific complexity and uncertainty associated with understanding soil carbon in the agricultural context. This paper seeks to examine the potential gap between research and practice in the context of soil carbon management. Specifically, it presents results from interviews with representatives from the farming community in six European countries in which their views about soil carbon management were explored. This study was undertaken within the SmartSOIL project which is using modelling to identify practices that improve carbon stocks and optimise crop productivity. Analysis is situated within the framework of credibility, salience and legitimacy concepts which are pertinent to understanding boundaries between the scientific and the farming communities. The results suggest that soil carbon management is perceived and interpreted differently on different sides of the science-practice boundary, particularly with respect to goals, context, language, timescale and scale. This has implications for salience. Perceived scientific uncertainty about the extent to which certain management practices enhance soil carbon is common amongst advisors, revealing issues of credibility. The consultation process has ensured some legitimacy in the project, by enabling feedback to scientists which will help shape the outcomes of the project and make them more suited to potential beneficiaries.
Citation preview
Management practices to enhance soil carbon: using stakeholder consultation to evaluate
credibility, salience and legitimacy of information
Julie Ingram & Jane Mills, CCRI [email protected]
The 11th European IFSA Symposium, Berlin 1-4 April 2014
Workshop 3.1 Soil management: facilitating on-farm mitigation and
adaptation
Conveners: Julie Ingram, Ana Frelih-Larsen, Jan Verhagen
Outline
• Significance of soil carbon • Management effects on soil carbon & yield • Science-practice gap – complexity • Science-practice gap – boundaries • Science-practice gap - credibility, salience legitimacy • SmartSOIL project approach, methods • Results • Conclusions
Significance of soil carbon
Soil productivity Soil health Resilience Ecosystem services
Mitigation
Significance of soil carbon
• Impetus for policy makers and scientists to identify agronomic and soil management practices that can increase carbon stocks and optimise carbon use (flows)
• This is the aim of SmartSOIL
Complex interactions – management effects on soil carbon & crop growth
Biological Chemical Physical
Carbon stocks
Carbon flows Management
Health Nutrients Water
Crop growth
Soil type
Crop yield
Soil Properties
Soil Functions
Carbon storage
Crop yield
Management
Science-practice gap - complexity
• Complexity of soil carbon dynamics • Lack of consensus within the scientific community • Uncertainty - efficacy of different management practices
to enhance soil carbon & yield across different soil types, scales & climatic conditions
• Problematic to provide evidence of the positive effects of management practices
• Heterogeneity of soil & farming systems • Science inaccessible to the lay person (modelling,
language) • Context of climate change debates • Challenges in communication and implementation –
science- practice gap
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there is a ‘prevalence of different norms and expectations in the two communities [experts and decision makers] regarding such crucial concepts as what constitutes reliable evidence, convincing argument, procedural fairness, and appropriate characterization of uncertainty’ Cash et al. (2003, p8086)
Science- action gap - concept of boundaries
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Scientific information – likely to be more effective if perceived by stakeholders to be not only credible but also salient and legitimate Credible information - perceived by the users to be accurate, valid, and of high quality Salience -how relevant information is to the needs of the decision maker Legitimacy -perception that the production of information and technology has been respectful of stakeholders’ divergent values and beliefs
Science- action gap – credibility, salience legitimacy
Context - SmartSOIL project
Two overall aims: • To identify farming systems and agronomic practices that
result in an optimised balance between crop productivity and soil carbon sequestration.
• To develop and deliver a decision support tool (DST) and guidelines to support novel approaches to different European soils and categories of beneficiaries (farmers, farm advisory and extension services, and policy makers).
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Linking soil carbon & crop productivity
Soil management
systems in Europe
DST & Guidelines
Economic appraisal of soil management
options
Improving knowledge LTEs & new experiments
Stakeholder involvement & dissemination
Applying knowledge
Case studies
Project approach
Case study regions
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Farmers know their practices well. Even if you put lots of effort in to convincing them that a certain practice will be good in the long term, I think this will be fairly ineffective. You have to break down barriers between research and day-to-day practice of farmers. Adviser, Spain
Results: Science- practice gap
Legitimacy Different
views, values, access
Salience Not seen as relevant to
farm business
Credibility Perceived lack
of scientific credibility
Even if the scientific community come to a consensus on best practice, it is likely that the practices defined will be so far removed from current practice that they won’t implement it. Adviser Spain
One of the problems is that there is so much uncertainly about C at the simplest level. It would be helpful to have consensus in scientific community first of all Researcher UK
Results
A German or an Austrian farmer
has more access to this kind of information Adviser Hungary
Results: Credibility
Even “experts” [advisers] don’t know which practice to recommend to farmers when they ask how can I conserve the quality of soil and mitigate climate change. The communication to the farmers is not necessarily the issue, more important, agree and display some clarity on “best practice. Adviser, Spain
At the advising level it is crucial to have a proof, an
evidence of the effects of a practice. Adviser, Italy It is essential to simplify the information [scientific
outputs]- in order to communicate a complex message to local situations. Adviser, Denmark
• Little relevance • Farmers not convinced of cost effectiveness • No demonstrable commercial incentive- economic
benefits should be prioritised • Short term production-related decisions not
compatible with long term carbon management -needs to be relevant to the farmers’ timescale
• Soil carbon not in farmers’/advisers’ vocabulary • Farmers don’t deal with single issues
Results: Salience
Results: Legitimacy
• Stakeholder engagement reveals diverse nature of potential beneficiaries of the project outputs and the contexts they operate in – Different values, concerns, and perspectives – Different access to: PCs, broadband, access to advisers, – Different- age education, farming systems – Different contexts
• Develop a range of support formats to suit different users’ needs and preferences
• Continue (widen?) consultation
Legitimacy Wider
consultation
Salience Reduced relevance
Credibility Tainted if too many
SH
increased legitimacy -negative effects on wider salience re-frames the issue in a way that is irrelevant to some stakeholders
‘Credibility is hard to establish in arenas in which considerable uncertainty and scientific disagreement exists, either about facts or causal relationships’. Cash et al. (2002, p4)
simplifying scientific inputs - compromises the credibility and usefulness of outputs
increased legitimacy - decreases credibility -science can be seen as being ‘tainted’ if too many SH bias the process e.g. soil tillage
Interaction –credibility, salience, legitimacy
Conclusions
• Soil carbon significant to policy makers and scientists but
not to farming community • Science- practice gap exists • Credibility, salience and legitimacy - boundary features • Need to balance interactions
© 2014 Julie Ingram. The Authors asserts their moral right to be identified as the Author of the work
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• Cash D. W. et al. (2003) Knowledge systems for
sustainable development. PNAS 100 (14), 8086–8091 • Ingram et al. (2013) Uptake of soil management
practices and experiences with decisions support tools: Analysis of the consultation with the farming community. Deliverable 5.1 www.smartsoil.eu
• Ingram et al. (in press) Managing Soil Organic Carbon: a Farm Perspective. Eurochoices
References
Thank you Countryside & Community Research Institute,
University of Gloucestershire, UK
