Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
terms of CO
2
emissions reduction (International Energy Agency, 2004) and, used as biofuel,
puts food security at further risk of leaving less food for human consumption. But climate
has always changed and it is likely to do so in the future. Some researchers (more in line
with the cognition of conventional farmers) suggest that fear of global warming derives
from politics and dogma rather than scientific proof (Plimer, 2009).
Examination of farmers' environmental behaviour also revealed some interesting differences
between the two survey populations. For example, conventional farmers are less interested
in joining environmental schemes than organic farmers but, significantly, more organic that
conventional farmers belonged to more than one scheme. More organic than conventional
farmers carry out conservation work such as hedge laying and wood planting contrasting
with conventional farmers who see creation of pheasant cover as conservation works.
Membership of environmental institutions was not high among either group, with
conventional farmers preferring the Game Conservancy Trust while organic farmers
preferred the Wildlife Trust, Woodland Trust and Friends of the Earth. Further significant
differences between organic and conventional farmers were found in relation to the
readership of magazines and journals. Thus while
Farmers Weekly
and, to a much less extent,
Farmers Guardian
dominate
conventional
farmers' reading, the
Living Earth
and
Organic
Farming
were the most widely read among organic farmers. The most popular magazine
overall was
Farmers Weekly
, but organic farmers read more widely and seemed more critical
in their reading habits than conventional respondents. The most significant difference
between the two groups of respondents is that almost two thirds of conventional farmers
shoot regularly (if only what they perceive as vermin), contrasting with less than one third
of organic farmers. In response to the loosely worded question about how they thought
farmers should 'behave' in the countryside, the term 'behave responsibly' was used more by
organic than conventional farmers. Organic farmers also tended to use the words 'stewards,
keepers, custodians or protectors', in contrast to conventional farmers who preferred to use
the words 'looking after, care and good condition'. As a rule, organic respondents' agri-
environmental behaviour, such as high membership of environmental organisations and
participation in conservation work, supported their ecocentric attitudes expressed about the
five key food security themes.
For the most part, the on-farm qualitative interviews supported the findings from the two
previous sections. For example, conventional farmers tended to optimise yields using
chemical inputs in order to maximize their income which, although important for achieving
food security, also has damaging effects on agricultural sustainability and is therefore
simultaneously detrimental to food security. This contrasted significantly with some organic
farmers' pride in lack of fertiliser use and what they perceived as natural difference in their
soil.
Advocates of organic farming systems - which receive substantial financial support in the
form of subsidy payments - claim they are 'sustainable' and see them as a potential solution
to the continued loss of biodiversity. Contrary to many published studies, however, it
remains unclear whether such 'holistic' whole-farm approaches, exemplified by organic
farming systems, provide such benefits for biodiversity due to the lack of longitudinal
studies to 'fully' appraise their potential role as sustainable producers of healthy nutritious
food
.
However, throughout the three stages of the analysis, generally the perceptions,
attitudes and behaviours of the organic farmers in the survey demonstrated an ecocentric
approach to the environment, farming and food production. Nevertheless, some organic
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