Why can’t every farmer practice nature-inclusive agriculture?

Despite its benefits to biodiversity, climate and soil, at most a tenth of Dutch dairy farmers currently practice nature-inclusive agriculture. A team of researchers from Utrecht University’s Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development set out to find out why, and were able to pinpoint five major issues that block the farmers’ transition to a nature-inclusive farming practice. As it turns out, while the willingness of farmers is there, a few important systematic changes need to happen to make nature-inclusive farming a viable and widespread business model in the Dutch dairy sector.

The main problems appear to lie in a lack of policy guidance (i.e. what is nature-inclusive, exactly, and what are the concrete ambitions?), problems in the development and sharing of knowledge related to nature-inclusive agriculture, difficult market conditions for nature-inclusive farmers, and a lack of human and financial resources.

Uneven playing field

“The overwhelming focus in terms of research funding is on conventional farming practices, the ‘dominant regime’, which hinders the development of knowledge on innovative farming,” Dorith Vermunt, PhD candidate at Utrecht University and co-author of the study, explains. “The government still promotes the ‘high input, high output’ farming model as a viable option, but the negative effects of this model are not reflected in the ultimate product price, and any benefits in terms of helping clean ecosystems are not rewarded.” This leads to an uneven playing field between conventional farming and nature-inclusive farming.

Similarly, nature-inclusive farmers often find it difficult to gain access to financing because banks are not accustomed to their business models and therefore tend not to extend loans to such farmers. Finally, agricultural education is still heavily focused on conventional farming. “This is partly because students often aspire to continue the farming model they grew up around,” co-author and Utrecht University PhD candidate Niko Wojtynia says.

Reinventing the status quo

Challenging the regime that prevents the spread of nature-inclusive farming requires a strong innovation system, according to the research team. However, in the case at hand the two are intertwined: the same farmers, food companies, government agencies and other actors that can play a role in fostering innovation have a strong interest in preserving the status quo. This presents an interesting dilemma as well as avenues for further research: how can we promote change from within – in other words, how can we encourage powerful regime actors to reinvent themselves?

Publication

D.A. Vermunt, N. Wojtynia, M.P. Hekkert, J. Van Dijk, R. Verburg, P.A. Verweij, M. Wassen, H. Runhaar, Five mechanisms blocking the transition towards ‘nature-inclusive’ agriculture: A systemic analysis of Dutch dairy farming, Agricultural Systems, Volume 195, 2022, 103280, ISSN 0308-521X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2021.103280.