Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
directing existing organizations to address agro-environmental issues,
providing a template of new practices, recruiting growers, and advising
partnership management teams. The importance of growers' participa-
tion in establishing, orienting, and legitimating partnership activities
cannot be overstated.
Not all grower participants are equal, however. Most partnership lead-
ers ascribe great importance to the leadership by select growers who
have created a suite of alternative practices and offered guidance about
these to their peers, such as Karl Kupers. These “leading growers” iden-
tified a cluster of motivations for devoting time to partnerships that
blended altruism and self-interest. Many partnership coordinators
describe this as having leading growers “bring other growers along.”
Area-wide IPM can benefit everyone, but the initiating grower stands to
benefit as well, as did Doug Hemly in the Randall Island Project. An
organized group of growers is much more likely to obtain help from
researchers and extensionists than disaggregated individuals; partner-
ships help growers represent themselves, either to the public or public
agencies, as Randy Lange and John Ledbetter of the Lodi winegrape
partnership discovered. Some growers, especially in CAFF-sponsored
partnerships, wanted to farm in accord with agroecological principles,
and wanted to help others do the same. In all these cases, leading grow-
ers can benefit. Ultimately, Karl Kupers sought out the experience of
other like minded growers so that he himself could learn.
Many practices promoted by partnerships were first developed by
leading growers who simply decided to reduce their agrochemical use in
ecologically informed ways, developed an alternative technique (often
in disregard of official scientific recommendations), and made changes
in their farming system after several years of experimentation. All the
growers described in the narratives opening each chapter of this topic
undertook on-farm research because they were convinced another way
of farming was possible. Partnerships provide social validation and addi-
tional knowledge support for these growers. They are small in number,
but many partnerships take full advantage of the on-farm discoveries of
leading growers. Their innovations earn them the term “template
grower,” meaning that partnership leaders propose their approach to
farming as a model, even if the practices cannot be easily replicated.
Template growers provoke a re-thinking of assumptions about the
