Drivers of environmentally friendly farming distribution and their impact on sustainability performance at different scales: a mixed methods approach

环境友好型农业分布的驱动因素及其对不同规模可持续绩效的影响：混合方法

• 批准号: ES/Y008480/1
• 负责人: Peter Gerard Matthews
• 金额: $ 13.86万
• 依托单位: University of Kent
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FY008480%2F1
• 关键词: Drivers; environmentally; friendly; farming; distribution

The UK's withdrawal from the European Union was an opportunity to reform agricultural policy to better align with sustainability goals and address limitations of agri-environment schemes (AES) in addressing environmental impacts of modern agriculture (Helm, 2017). The government's aims for reform emphasised 'public money for public goods' and the need for landscape-scale action via cooperative management, and these ideas around farmers as public good providers and landscape-scale actions have been particularly contested and changeable aspects of new policy regime (DEFRA, 2023; Harvey, 2023). My research identified challenges in applying these principles to improving agricultural sustainability, and so has timely insights to offer farmers, policy makers, and academics.Of the many approaches to studying drivers of farmer adoption behaviours, researchers trying to understand the deeper meaning behind farmer decisions increasingly focus on farmer identities, status, and cultural ideals of what a 'good farmer' should be doing (Burton, 2004; Cusworth & Dodsworth, 2021). I used interviews to apply these concepts in investigating how farmers interpret the idea of being providers of public goods and doing so in collaboration with other farmers. This work highlighted how the 'public goods' concept was adapted by farmers to align with their identities and expectations of their role, and that targeting relationships and information exchange will be important to resolve potential conflicts between landscape-scale public good delivery and established farmer identities. Alongside these interviews, I used spatial analysis to show how AES participation in England is clustered at the district level, and to suggest factors driving this clustering. To further study how drivers of adoption distribution relate to regional sustainability, I combined scenario analysis, impact mapping, and network analysis, to assess how the rate and distribution of regenerative farming (which stands on the frontier of agricultural change in the UK) adoption could impact sustainability in south-east England. This identified key pathways to explain how the high, clustered adoption of regenerative farming can enhance regional sustainability, showing the importance of information sharing and relationships in linking aspects of sustainability at different scales. This is the first time this mix of methods has been applied in agricultural sustainability research, allowing me to bring a fresh perspective to this topic.My research therefore made a worthwhile contribution to knowledge, and this project is an opportunity to ensure these findings reach their desired audiences and influence discussion about the future of farming in England. The 5 candidate journal articles I have identified will make new connections between different disciplines, provide recommendations that could inform implementation of post-Brexit agricultural policy, and advance our understanding of the contribution of alternative farming approaches to regional sustainability - a neglected topic in the literature, which has focused on farm-level sustainability (Inwood et al., 2018; Nogués et al., 2019). My research also highlighted the importance of considering different spatial scales in studying the adoption and sustainability performance of alternative farming approaches, so this project will involve limited further research (20% of the project, i.e., 2.5 months), adapting my methods to incorporate a multi-scale approach, which will drive expansion of this frontier in agricultural sustainability research. To maximise impact of this work, I will also attend at least 2 conferences to widen my network and share my findings and create a web-based mapping tool to present my research themes in an interactive manner for wider audiences. Additionally, I will continue teaching in areas relevant to my research and undertake training to support my professional development as an early career researcher.

英国退出欧盟是改革农业政策的一个机会，以更好地符合可持续发展目标，并解决农业环境计划（AES）在解决现代农业环境影响方面的局限性（Helm，2017）。 “公共资金用于公共产品”以及通过合作管理进行景观规模行动的需要，以及这些围绕农民作为公共产品提供者和景观规模行动的想法一直是新政策制度中特别有争议和变化的方面（DEFRA， 2023；Harvey，2023）我的研究发现了应用这些原则来提高农业可持续性的挑战，因此为农民、政策制定者和学者提供了及时的见解。了解农民决策背后的深层含义越来越关注农民的身份、地位和“好农民”应该做什么的文化理想（Burton，2004；Cusworth＆Dodsworth，2021）。访谈，应用这些概念来调查农民如何解释成为公共产品提供者的想法，并与其他农民合作。这项工作强调了农民如何调整“公共产品”概念以符合他们的身份和期望。除了这些访谈之外，我还使用空间分析来展示英格兰的 AES 参与如何聚集在该地区。水平，并提出驱动这种聚类的因素，以进一步研究驱动因素。与区域可持续性相关的采用分布、场景分析、影响图和网络分析，以评估再生农业（位于英国农业变革的前沿）的采用率和分布如何影响东南部的可持续性英国确定了解释再生农业的高度集中采用如何增强区域可持续性的关键途径，显示了信息共享和关系在连接不同规模的可持续性方面的重要性。这是第一次采用这种方法。应用于农业可持续研究，让我带来了新鲜的因此，我的研究对知识做出了有价值的贡献，这个项目是一个机会，可以确保这些发现到达预期的受众，并影响关于英国农业未来的讨论。我已经确定的 5 篇候选期刊文章将发表。不同学科之间的新联系，提供可以为英国脱欧后农业政策的实施提供信息的建议，并增进我们对替代农业方法对区域可持续发展的贡献的理解——这是文献中被忽视的主题，其重点是农场层面的可持续发展（因伍德等人，2018；等人，2019）。我的研究还强调了在研究替代农业方法的采用和可持续性表现时考虑不同空间尺度的重要性，因此该项目将涉及有限的进一步研究（项目的 20%，即 2.5 个月）。 ，调整我的方法以纳入多尺度方法，这将推动农业可持续性研究这一前沿的扩展，为了最大限度地发挥这项工作的影响，我还将参加至少两次会议，以扩大我的网络并分享我的发现并创建一个此外，我将继续在与我的研究相关的领域进行教学，并接受培训以支持我作为早期职业研究员的专业发展。