Mediterranean farmers’ understandings of ‘good soil management’ and ‘good farmer’ identity in the context of conservation agriculture

ABSTRACT

Mediterranean agriculture is increasingly threatened by soil degradation and climate change. Conservation agriculture (CA) is a farming approach characterized by reduced soil disturbance, soil cover, and crop rotation that provides agronomic, economic, and environmental benefits to farmers, but which is not yet widespread in the Mediterranean region. To investigate the sociocultural aspects of CA adoption, we examined farmers’ understandings of ‘good soil management’ and a ‘good farmer’ identity. We employed network analysis to visualize and compare farmers’ mental models of these concepts and how they differed according to farmers’ tillage practices. We found that crop rotation is a prominent concept cognitively tied to fertilizer application, bridging conventional and reduced tillage practices. CA farmers’ mental models of soil management are more complex than conventional farmers’. Demonstrating productivity and having experience and knowledge were the most prominent aspects of farmers’ understanding of a ‘good farmer’. For CA farmers, this was tied to environmental responsibility and innovation, whereas for conventional farmers, a set of best practices including tillage and the use of mineral fertilizers, was valued more highly. CA may compete with held understandings concerning soil management among conventional farmers. CA adoption programmes could be better tailored to align with their cultural values.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• No-tillage agriculture
• mental models
• network analysis
• soil conservation
• cultural capital

Acknowledgments

Elsa Varela's contribution to this study was supported through a Fellowship of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Our study was conducted within the framework of the ConServeTerra project, an international multidisciplinary project seeking to identify the mental and physical barriers to the uptake of CA across the Mediterranean (www.conserveterra.org). This project is funded by the PRIMA Foundation (Project number 1913).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data is available upon request to the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emmeline Topp

Emmeline Topp is a postdoc researcher at the University of Kassel.

Ana Stephan

Ana Stephan finalized her MSc at the University of Kassel.

Elsa Varela

Elsa Varela is a senior Humboldt research fellow at the University of Göttingen.

Harun Cicek

Harun Cicek is the deputy leader of the Group Resilient Cropping Systems at FiBL.

Tobias Plieninger

Prof Tobias Plieninger leads the chair of social-ecological interactions at the Universities of Kassel and Götttingen.