Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 15.2 Key quality criteria for organic research
Releance
Relexie objectiity
Establishing the societal and intentional
context of the research by way of:
1 participation
2 value inquiry
3 transparency
Communicating the cognitive context of the
research results by way of:
1 clarifying values and revealing funding
2 documenting methods
3 ensuring the falsifiability of theories,
models and hypotheses
4 establishing the generalisability of the
results
5 showing relevant areas of ignorance and
uncertainty.
tures of science (e.g. organisational structuring of research, research policy and funding, sci-
entific journals and other media of publication, educational institutions).
Sound research approaches in organic agriculture
From the early days of organic research, holistic approaches were held up to be more appropri-
ate for organic systems than reductionist ones, embracing the integrative philosophy of organic
farming (Howard 1943, Woodward 2002b). This has in part led to the idea that the holistic
approach to research is the 'holy grail' of organic research. The extent to which this type of
research occurs is, however, questionable. Lockeretz (2000) carried out an analysis of organic
and conventional research published over ten years in the
American
Journal
of
Alternative
Agri-
culture
and concluded that there was no systematic distinction in the kinds of questions posed
or how they were answered between organic and conventional research. However fitting that
may be for the history of organic research publication, the aspirations towards more holistic
research methods in organic agriculture are worthy of a more comprehensive analysis. A range
of barriers against the realisation of holistic aspirations can be found, and a two-pronged
approach, which will look at the soundness of research methodologies in the organic context
as well as at methodological and institutional barriers, is outlined.
There has been a long-standing and unfruitful opposition between reductionist and holistic
science in connection with agricultural and ecological research (see e.g. Lockeretz and
Anderson 1993, Thompson 1995, Rowe 1997), which has hampered cross-disciplinary cooper-
ation. From the holistic view, analytic, reductive methods are necessarily reductionist and are
therefore bad science because they do not capture the connectedness of complex reality. Fur-
thermore they are (at least in part) to blame for the present agricultural and environmental
problems. From the reductionist view, analytic, reductive methods ensure the objectivity of
science, and other methods are, therefore, not scientific.
Two comments are pertinent. First, any scientific method will give a 'reduced' view - the
world as we see it is not 'the real world'. Hence the term 'holistic' seems to promise more of
science than can be fulfilled. Second, since reduction is a powerful approach in science that
can contribute significantly to learning, the term 'reductionist', which often has a negative
ring, should be used only where a science is unaware of the consequences of reduction or denies
that there are any such consequences.
A more comprehensive systemic or wholeness-orientated approach does not imply a dis-
missal of traditional disciplinary science. But it does imply that the consequences of reduction
must be included in the answers that science provides. As argued above, good science exposes
