Epsilon Open Archive

The aim of this pilot study was to decrease the lack of understanding concerning farmers’ decision-making in order to gain a deeper portrayal of farmers' decision-making by studying decision-making in practice. Farmers' decision-making is a process that is influenced by a variety of factors and requires that farmers are versed in many specialized areas. Previous research in this area lacks a holistic perspective where biological, technical, economic, ethical and social factors are integrated, in order to describe the farmers’ lifeworld.

Three farmers from western Sweden were included in the study, which has been conducted as a multiple case study, in the form of workplace studies, in order to identify the participating farmers' lifeworld, the support through advisors and various external resources, eg. IT tools. This qualitative research design has resulted in a number of detailed descriptions of how choices and decisions are made at the farm level, than had not been possible with more quantitative methods and statistical analysis of socio-economic variables. According to researchers in the field "farm management" this kind of studies are currently missing in the agricultural domain, and this study is considered to be a first step in that direction.

The result highlights a number of factors regarding how the farmers consider their situation and lifeworld, of the advisory role and the impact of IT and other tangible artifacts. The report includes a discussion of the results obtained, different views and explanations of knowledge and thinking, and provides suggestions for further research. The report ends with some conclusions which indicate that farmers’ being-in-the-world is complex and can be described as a dynamic system without clear linear causality, which is both fascinating and frustrating. The advisory service is primarily considered as a support function and a sounding board for more current decisions regarding crops, spraying and fertilizing, while major and strategic decisions are initially discussed in other networks. The advisory service needs to develop by expanding a little more outside the comfort zone of ordinary activities and take some height in more strategic terms for the farm as a whole.