Climate Cropping presents at Norway’s first soil festival

For qualitative social science researchers, events like the soil festival provide the opportunity to cross check results with so-called ‘user groups’. This can glean important insights on interpreting data. Work package 6 (WP6) focuses on the social acceptance of four chosen soil management practices. These are 1) reduced tillage, 2) cover crops 3) crop residue retention and 4) organic fertilization. WP6 has carried out interviews with 39 farmers across eight European countries to gain qualitative insights on farmers’ perspectives, from diverse places, about the use and acceptance of the different soil management practices. The aim is to get a disparate sample of farmers across countries and contexts. It is hoped that the study’s results, produced together with Climate Cropping’s international partners, will be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The results from the 39 interviews included also 6 interviews with farmers in Norway and the audience, primarily consisting of Norwegian farmers, was particularly interested in these findings.

Feedback from the audience emphasized the importance of supportive policies to encourage farmers to adopt reduced tillage. The farmers interviewed for the cross-comparative study were all located in the more Southern part of Norway. Feedback from the audience included the observation that this regional policy (of reduced tillage) does not take place to the same extent in Trøndelag (where the soil festival took place) and farmers there face a different situation.

These kinds of inputs show again how important policy can be to change practices, which is another aim of the project. Besides the 39 farmer interviews, the Ruralis team is currently carrying out interviews with national policymakers in several European countries. We hope to hear more about their future plans to build the social acceptance of the four soil management practices and how they are addressing the challenges affecting current policies mentioned by farmers in the interviews. The interviews with the policymakers – combined with the results of the soil scientists in other work packages in Climate Cropping – will feed into the design of policy briefs. These are planned to be presented at a national soil health seminar in Oslo on 7 December as part of World Soil Day.

It is possible to sign up for the workshop (in Norwegian) here: https://nyhetsbrev.ruralis.no/p/s/MjU1NjU6YjM0MTFkYWUtZWVjNS00YzE5LTgxNTgtODQzNGIwOTAzY2Qw

Stay tuned for more information.

For more information on the Soil Festival (in Norwegian) see here Jord Festival Trondheim 13 & 14 August for bønder og hokme-dyrkere