CONTEXT

Enhancing farm resilience has become a key policy objective of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to help farmers deal with numerous interrelated economic, environmental, social, and institutional shocks and stresses. A central theme in resilience thinking is the role of the unknown, implying that knowledge is incomplete and that change, uncertainty, and surprise are inevitable. Important strategies to enhance resilience are exploiting social capital and learning as these contribute to improved knowledge to prepare farmers for change.

OBJECTIVE

This paper explores how social capital and learning relate to farm resilience along the dimensions of robustness, adaptation, and transformation.

METHODS

We study the resilience of Dutch arable farmers from the Veenkoloniën and Oldambt using a combination of four methods. Qualitative data from semi-structured farmer interviews, focus groups, and expert interviews are combined with quantitative data from farmer surveys. The qualitative data are analysed using thematic coding. Non-parametric tests are used to analyse the quantitative data. Based on methodological triangulation, we mostly find convergence in our qualitative and quantitative datasets increasing the validity of our findings.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

The results reveal that social capital and learning help farmers to adapt and are, in certain cases, also related to robustness and transformations. Robust farmers often learned by exploiting farmers' informal social networks, primarily relying on bonding social capital to acquire knowledge about agriculture or develop financial skills. Farmers undertaking adaptation are characterised by bonding and bridging social capital obtained by formal and informal networks, are early adopters of innovation, and have high self-efficacy. Combinations of bridging and linking social capital from formal networks could foster farmers to learn new ideas and critically reflect on current farm business models. These learning outcomes relate to farm transformations.

SIGNIFICANCE

This study provides some early results on the dynamic relationship between farmers' social capital and learning and how these concepts are associated with resilience. Our findings are relevant for agricultural policy makers, as we provide recommendations on how social capital and learning have some potential to facilitate farm adaptation and transformation and improve information exchange in Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS).

中文翻译：

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探索社会资本和学习如何与荷兰耕地农民的复原力相关联

语境

提高农场抵御能力已成为欧盟共同农业政策 (CAP) 的一项关键政策目标，旨在帮助农民应对众多相互关联的经济、环境、社会和制度冲击和压力。弹性思维的一个中心主题是未知的作用，这意味着知识是不完整的，变化、不确定性和意外是不可避免的。增强复原力的重要战略是利用社会资本和学习，因为这些有助于提高知识，让农民为变革做好准备。

客观的

本文探讨了社会资本和学习如何与稳健性、适应和转型方面的农场复原力相关。

方法

我们使用四种方法的组合研究了来自 Veenkoloniën 和 Oldambt 的荷兰耕地农民的复原力。来自半结构化农民访谈、焦点小组和专家访谈的定性数据与来自农民调查的定量数据相结合。定性数据使用主题编码进行分析。非参数检验用于分析定量数据。基于方法三角测量，我们发现定性和定量数据集中的收敛性增加了我们研究结果的有效性。

结果和结论

结果表明，社会资本和学习有助于农民适应，并且在某些情况下，还与稳健性和转型有关。强大的农民通常通过利用农民的非正式社交网络来学习，主要依靠结合社会资本来获取有关农业的知识或发展金融技能。进行适应的农民的特点是通过正式和非正式网络获得的社会资本结合和桥接，是创新的早期采用者，并且具有很高的自我效能。将来自正式网络的社会资本桥接和连接起来可以促进农民学习新思想并批判性地反思当前的农场商业模式。这些学习成果与农场转型有关。

意义

本研究提供了一些关于农民社会资本与学习之间动态关系以及这些概念如何与复原力相关联的早期结果。我们的研究结果与农业政策制定者相关，因为我们就社会资本和学习如何在促进农业适应和转型以及改善农业知识和创新系统 (AKIS) 中的信息交流方面提供了一些建议。