Abstract
For further development of organic agriculture, it will become increasingly essential to integrate experienced innovative practitioners in research projects. The characteristics of this process of co-learning have been transformed into a research approach, theoretically conceptualized as “experiential science” (Baars 2007, Baars and Baars 2007). The approach integrates social sciences, natural sciences, and human sciences. It is derived from action research and belongs to the wider field of transdiscliplinary research. In a dialogue-based culture of equality and mutual exchange the principal of a “bottom-up” experiential learning process can be stimulated and fully reflective. It provides an opportunity to develop organic agriculture as multiple best-practices based on transdisciplinary projects, cases studies, and case series. The aim of the article is to describe the methodological characteristics and the theoretical and practical potential of experiential science for research in and development of organic farming. Three characteristic projects are outlined to illustrate the main elements of the methodology: the retrospective reflection on intuitive and experiential knowledge held by farmers; the knowledge derived from on-farm experimentation; the exchange of knowledge and experiences between farming pioneers within a “masterclass” setting. The study concludes that experiential science offers an important philosophical reconciliation process whereby a synthesis of different approaches to research becomes possible in solving real-life problems: quantitative and qualitative, subjective and objective, reductionistic and holistic, practice and science. Recognizing that there are multiple elements contributing to the process of acquiring knowledge, experiential science draws on a broad field of scientific methods thereby integrating the hermeneutic approach of social sciences and the Humanities with the established methods of contemporary natural science.
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Notes
Participatory stands for the co-operation between farmer and researcher. Both in experimental as in observational research approaches, information and insight, formal and informal knowledge are shared in a constant process of communication. In action research the evaluation of knowledge is primarily on the doing of the farmers, rather than on their thinking.
Coach: a coach is a facilitator of a process of development. A coach helps another person to reflect on his process of change. This can be done by a researcher or advisor as well as a colleague-farmer (Iepema 2006)
BIOVEEM = Development of the management of organic dairy farmers. The project has run from 2001 to 2006. In the second phase of the project an inner circle of 17 converted organic dairy farmers were used to answer management questions of this farmer’s group. Different methods were used besides each other and a group of researchers, advisors and farmers were responsible for the project content.
Kiene (2001) mentions several types of pattern recognition used in case study analysis. Patterns arise due to the specific actions of the farmer, and the correspondence between the patterns within his action and later on in f.i. the field is used to understand the causal relationship. Mostly used are the patterns in space and the patterns in time.
"Novelties are meant to reach a new, desired farming situation….Farmers improve their situation in a certain direction and bring it to perfection by means of one or a set of novelties" (Swagemakers 2003).
Kiene (2001) describes the contradiction between the reduced factorial design in combination with quantitative outcomes and the complexity of a systemic understanding, where all kind of different patterns are used to control for the causal understanding. In experimental research the best statistical outcomes are found, if the number of factors is reduced, whereas under real life setting the sureness about cause and impact is best if we are dealing with complex patterns. The judgment about potential and relevance of this complexity can only be done by experienced people based on their long term practical skills.
In case of organic farming "naturalness" was defined as: (1) a symptomatic decision making based on the refusal of synthetic chemicals which should be replaced by "natural" chemicals, therefore mention a "substitution approach" showing that thinking was very similar as in conventional farming: a no-chemical approach, (2) an imitation of natural processes learned from nature based on holistic thinking: a systemic agro-ecological approach, and (3) an approach based on the respect for the integrity of life and living based on additionally spiritual thinking about organisms as a living being. Verhoog et al. (2003) have taken the position that organic farming can best be developed, if all three levels are present, although there is a tendency to reduce the definition of organic farming only at the first level.
IFOAM. The International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements has pinpointed how organic agriculture is based on four main principles: health, ecology, fairness, and care.
In science, methods to gain explicit knowledge are trained in a period of 5 years. After the Bachelor phase students can become a Master of Science. Within the epistemology experiential science we are dealing with an embodied learning of practitioners based on the principle of being pupil, apprentice, and master. Knowledge in action describes the adequate operating ability of experienced practitioners; therefore I mentioned them "Master of Action."
Gestalt comes from the Greek word "Morphe" or form. Not only the exact shape is mentioned, but also its expression is included.
Goethean science can be seen as a scientific approach to grasp the holistic characteristics of nature. The steps of the research approach are: (a) observation with all senses, quantitative and qualitative; (b) repeated observations under different conditions and comparisons with related objects and situations; (c) the inner imagination of all features, characteristics and life process, and (d) the eidetic reduction to the essence of the being. Goethean science has the intention to grasp the whole, based on an embodied understanding of the observed (Bockemühl 1981; Seamon and Zajonc 1998).
The boundaries and therefore the size definition of a system are flexible. It is not per se the farm ecosystem; it can also be the soil–plant interaction, the animal, or the herd as a whole, but also the wider field of the farming system, its landscape. The basic of an ecological scientific focus in Quadrant II is on relationships in between objects of research. In contrast to Quadrant I here the research attention is reverting towards the surrounding of the object in focus.
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Acknowledgments
The scientific work was financed by private funding providers, farmers, banks, and state funding from the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture. I am grateful to Elisabeth Alington, New Zealand for editing the English text. Great thanks to all the farmers and research colleagues who were my partners in the step-by-step, experiential development of this concept. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Baars, T. Experiential Science; Towards an Integration of Implicit and Reflected Practitioner-Expert Knowledge in the Scientific Development of Organic Farming. J Agric Environ Ethics 24, 601–628 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-010-9281-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-010-9281-3