Brennon Wood

Agricultural Science in the Wild: A Social Network Analysis of Farmer Knowledge Exchange

Responding to demands for transformed farming practices requires new forms of knowledge. Given their scale and complexity, agricultural problems can no longer be solved by linear transfers in which technology developed by specialists passes to farmers by way of extension intermediaries. Recent research on alternative approaches has focused on the innovation systems formed by interactions between heterogeneous actors. Rather than linear transfer, systems theory highlights network facilitation as a specialized function. This paper contributes to our understanding of such facilitation by investigating the networks in which farmers discuss science. We report findings based on the study of a pastoral farming experiment collaboratively undertaken by a group of 17 farmers and five scientists. Analysis of prior contact and alter sharing between the group’s members indicates strongly tied and decentralized networks. Farmer knowledge exchanges about the experiment have been investigated using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. Network surveys identified who the farmers contacted for knowledge before the study began and who they had talked to about the experiment by 18 months later. Open-ended interviews collected farmer statements about their most valuable contacts and these statements have been thematically analysed. The network analysis shows that farmers talked about the experiment with 192 people, most of whom were fellow farmers. Farmers with densely tied and occupationally homogeneous contacts grew their networks more than did farmers with contacts that are loosely tied and diverse. Thematic analysis reveals three general principles: farmers value knowledge delivered by persons rather than roles, privilege farming experience, and develop knowledge with empiricist rather than rationalist techniques. Taken together, these findings suggest that farmers deliberate about science in intensive and durable networks that have significant implications for theorizing agricultural innovation. The paper thus concludes by considering the findings’ significance for current efforts to rethink agricultural extension.

A World in Retreat: The Reconfiguration of Hybridity in 20th-Century New Zealand Television

The blurring of formerly distinct contents is a much-noted feature of contemporary television. By focusing on the development of reality TV, interpreters have misconceived both the complexity of these hybridizations and the novelty of their current forms. Analysis of 20th-century New Zealand television reveals a range of hybrid types whose relative standing has changed over time. Post-war contents were dominated by fiction and by hybrid forms that maintained a distinction between reference and invention. The late 1970s, however, saw the advent of hybridizations that identified fiction with fact. During the 1990s this identification was generalized to televisual discourse through a sharp decline in fiction levels and the ascendance of a new cross between fact and advertisement, the infomercial. Over the course of the 20th century, hybridity moved from the conventional sense of a transformable world to fatalistic and unimaginative cultures of self-improvement.

Using educational theory and research to refine agricultural extension: affordances and barriers for farmers’ learning and practice change

ABSTRACT Purpose: To examine the factors that support and hinder farmers’ learning and to investigate the impact of an innovative learning program on farmers’ practice change. Design/methodology/approach: Individual interviews and focus group discussions were held with 24 farmers over 20 months. Observations were made of these farmers as they participated with eight agricultural and social scientists in a range of innovative experiences to learn about chicory and plantain establishment and management. These learning experiences were designed around evidence-informed educational pedagogies. Data sets were analyzed using NVivo to determine common themes of affordances and barriers to learning and actual practice changes. Findings: The affordances for learning and practice change include belonging to a learning community, enhancing self-efficacy, engaging with scientists, seeing relative advantage, reinforcing and validating learning, supporting system’s integration and developing an identity as learners. Barriers to learning and practice change include issues of: trialability, complexity, compatibility and risk. Practical implications: The importance of basing new models of extension around evidence-informed pedagogies known through educational research to promote learning and practice change. Theoretical implications: Sociocultural theory and self-efficacy theories of learning are critical to the success of effective agricultural extension programs. Originality: To date, little empirical research about the affordances and barriers for pastoral farmers’ learning has been based on contemporary educational research.

The dislocation of agriculture and food: a network analysis of interlocking directorates in New Zealand's corporate economy

Abstract As a political project, ‘agri-food’ calls for improved communication between New Zealands land-based industries and the business of food. Such communication may be enhanced by the sharing of company directors, a social practice whose interlocks create information flows across the economy. These flows can overcome market fragmentation and help establish a common sense of purpose. However, a social network analysis of interlocks between New Zealands largest businesses shows few signs of the communication structures that agri-food requires. Food is the most isolated sector, primary production the most connected. Brokerage and clique analysis shows that primary productions major partners are the consumer and finance sectors. These two sectors have very different profiles and their differences drive primary production networks in two opposed directions. Primary production is not only dislocated from food, it is also deeply divided between relatively small locally-owned consumer companies and large overseas-owned banks.

Key sources and seasonal dynamics of greenhouse gas fluxes from yak grazing systems on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock grazing systems are contributing to global warming. To examine the influence of yak grazing systems on GHG fluxes and relationships between GHG fluxes and environmental factors, we measured carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes over three key seasons in 2012 and 2013 from a range of potential sources, including: alpine meadows, dung patches, manure heaps and yak night pens, on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We also estimated the total annual global warming potential (GWP, CO2-equivalents) from family farm grazing yaks using our measured results and other published data. In this study, GHG fluxes per unit area from night pens and composting manure heaps were higher than from dung patches and alpine meadows. Increased moisture content and surface temperature of soil and manure were major factors increasing CO2 and CH4 fluxes. High contributions of CH4 and N2O (21.1% and 44.8%, respectively) to the annual total GWP budget (334.2 tonnes) strongly suggest these GHG other than CO2 should not be ignored when estimating GWP from the family farm grazing yaks on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau for the purposes of determining national and regional land use policies or compiling global GHG inventories.